


The Out of Towners

by OughtaKnowBetter



Category: NCIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-25
Updated: 2010-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 51,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OughtaKnowBetter/pseuds/OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A funny thing happened on the way home from a seminar...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Out of Towners

_At least it's not Gibbs' tiny excuse for a vehicle,_ DiNozzo grouched to himself.

Not that he'd say anything like that out loud. Not if he wanted to keep his job, and with his own car payment coming due on the fifteenth, DiNozzo needed to keep the paychecks coming.

No, there were only two types of cars that DiNozzo wanted to be seen in: fast, and faster. Red was good. Chick magnet was even better. Convertible, leather seats with the texture of butter so soft it would spread with a feather off a duck's breast. Sound system sweet enough to convince Pavarotti that there was a violin quartet in the back seat.

Yet here he was, riding in neither Gibbs' car nor DiNozzo's fantasy vehicle. Instead he was huddled in the back seat, shades on and eyes closed, pretending that taking a nap in a sedan with the rest of his team coming home from a mandatory and incredibly boring seminar on sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace was his idea of a really good time. There had been only two good things about the whole damn thing: one, he'd learned yet another way to push Ziva to the brink with a girly joke and two, that the Flying Fish microbrewery beer that was served in the hotel bar wasn't half bad.

There was also a lot of miserable things. The hotel shower was tepid with the water dribbling out of the shower head instead of a steady drenching. The ice machine, in dire need of sound-proofing, was located next to his room, and it always decided to churn out more ice at four AM. And four of the six lecturers were sour-pussed old hags who decided from the moment that DiNozzo entered the room that he was a sexual deviant who ought to be fired sooner rather than later and that it was their job to make certain that he knew The Rules so that no one wasted taxpayer dollars on the low-life scum that was DiNozzo. The other two lecturers were of We're Protected Categories—African-American and Middle Eastern-American—who likewise agreed that one Anthony DiNozzo was a blot upon the NCIS as well as American society in general.

It didn't help that they appeared to love McGee. _Who wouldn't in a class like that?_ DiNozzo grumbled to himself. Little baby face McGeek: boy scout, trustworthy and honest and smart.

Gibbs' admonition still echoed in the back of his skull: _suck it up, DiNozzo. It's only a day and a half._

Murders occur in much less time, had been DiNozzo's response.

Gibbs had had a response, too. DiNozzo's brains were still rattling from it.

At least McGee was driving. If it were Gibbs, they'd be home by now although a few vital organs such as livers and lungs would have been left back in Philly at the hotel. Ziva? They'd never make it home alive. McGee, on the other hand, drove like a little old lady, nice and sedate. He allowed others to cut in front of him on the turnpike. He pulled over so that speeders could dash by him on the left doing ninety in a sixty-five speed limit, clucking at the state trooper who was parked on the side of the highway, ticketing the unlucky one who'd gotten himself caught.

With McGee driving, DiNozzo could catch up on lost sleep.

Then it happened: Gibbs' cell rang. That shouldn't have been a remarkable occurrence. Gibbs' cell rang routinely throughout the day, delivering good news and bad, facilitating communication between team members and onward and outward to the world at large. There were two things that made it remarkable, to DiNozzo's way of thinking: they were in the middle of cornfields where cell service should have been pitifully scant, for one thing. Worse: they were supposedly driving home. No one ought to be calling them unless there was some sort of national emergency.

DiNozzo listened hard, his attention completely at odds with his desire to sleep. The radio was on at a low volume, just enough for McGee to listen to the various traffic reports for avoidance purposes. _You really think you can skip over D.C. traffic, McWishfulThinking?_ DiNozzo ignored it in order to concentrate on Gibbs' half of the conversation.

"West Virginia?" Pause. "Which side of the state, sir?" Another pause. "'Bout three hours, give or take. Send the details to McGee's computer. He's the only one who brought his along."

"Boss?" McGee kept his eyes on the road. A truck roared past, leaving them in the dust. A state trooper, hiding in a grove of trees, peeled out after the truck. McGee couldn't help the little smirk that twisted his lips.

"You did bring your computer along, didn't you, McGee?"

"Yes, sir. The laptop. With WiFi capability."

"I hope that means that you can get it to work in the middle of nowhere."

"It does, sir. Anywhere I can get cell phone service, I can get computer—"

"Good. Use that GPS thingy in the dashboard, McGee. We're going to Starksville, West Virginia."

Ziva sat upright on the seat next to DiNozzo, proving that she had been sleeping just as much as he had. "West Virginia? What about home?"

"Little detour," Gibbs grunted. "It's on the way."

"Technically, it's west of here by a bit more than a hundred miles—"

"We're the closest," Gibbs interrupted McGee's clarification.

DiNozzo felt it was time to enter the conversation. "What's in Starksville, West Virginia, boss?"

A disgusted and unhappy grunt. "A dead petty officer, DiNozzo."

* * *

Gibbs slowed down as the three buildings that constituted Starksville came into view in the distance, the sedan kicking up dirt from the edges of the road where ditches hadn't yet dropped away. McGee was now his co-pilot, his laptop open and whirring, reporting from the information that headquarters had sent through. McGee was also trying to brace both himself and his laptop against the side of the sedan to keep from being flung through the window at top speed.

"Petty Officer Randi Johnson, stationed on the USS Determination, working as a communications officer on her second tour of duty. The Determination got into port three days ago, and Petty Officer Johnson was on leave. According to her commander, Johnson was headed home to Starksville where she grew up and has a home. Commander Wilson also believed that a friend of hers, Petty Officer Willa Mathis, was accompanying her.

"Here's her jacket." McGee waited impatiently for the screen to load, Ziva and DiNozzo looking over his shoulder from the back seat of the sedan. "The signal's weak. It's coming in slow."

A head shot leisurely reconstituted itself onto the computer, showing an attractive girl with dancing brown eyes, her hair pulled back into a regulation bun underneath her white naval cap.

"Petty Officer Randi Johnson," McGee read from the screen. "Age twenty-five, went ROTC through the University of Delaware, earning an associate's degree in computer information systems before becoming active in the service. She was involved in some of the encryption work on the USS Determination, boss," he reported. "Commander Wilson is already calling his staff back to duty, to change the codes."

"Good," Gibbs grunted. "What else, McGee?"

"Johnson doesn't have any next of kin," McGee read. "She listed—hey, she listed Petty Officer Mathis as her next of kin."

"They're friends, McGee. What's so strange about that?"

McGee gulped. "Boss, Petty Officer Mathis is accused of Johnson's murder."

* * *

Gibbs observed the three buildings that made up the center of Starksville: the all-around government building which appeared to double as the police station and the local jail, a small market heavy on local produce, and a store that carried everything from clothing to cosmetics to hardware. No post office; the town was likely too small to possess its own zip code. He frowned; this was the kind of place that he liked, far from the nonsense found in D.C., and to have it sullied by something as dirty as a murder just didn't seem right. That the murder involved a couple of naval petty officers made it all the worse.

The murder had taken place at Petty Officer Johnson's home a couple of miles from here but touching base with the local police was the right thing to do. They had found the body, had arrested Petty Officer Mathis, and had the details. NCIS had jurisdiction, but cooperation went a long way toward making everyone's lives easier and his team had already let him know that easy was better. Easy meant faster. DiNozzo in particular was chafing at the bit to get back to D.C. and the city life that he liked.

"Signal's giving out," McGee informed him. "We must be between towers. I'll need a landline to get anything more between us and Headquarters."

"You have anything more that I need to know?" Gibbs asked, pulling the sedan into the ruts that passed for a parking spot in front of the government-looking building.

"No, boss. There weren't many details sent through."

"Then let's go find some." Gibbs slammed the car door behind him, Ziva and DiNozzo following, McGee taking another moment to shut down the laptop and stowing it away before hustling to catch up.

It wasn't hard to find the police station within the government building. It was one of three doors, and the only one with a sign missing. Since the other two said Mayor's Offic (the 'e' had fallen off) and Town Clerk (and, scrawled underneath, was a hand-written sign proclaiming that the clerk was the one to see for anything resembling work), Gibbs presumed that the third must be the one he wanted.

He was right. A kid looked up at him; Gibbs estimated that the boy was all of fifteen. Sitting in for the dispatcher? Maybe. Small towns like this didn't have the manpower to be picky about things like child labor laws.

"Can I help you?" the kid asked, trying not to sound suspicious at seeing four people in suits and somber expressions march into the police station.

"Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS," Gibbs introduced himself, flipping open his badge, keeping it polite. "My people: DiNozzo, McGee, David. We're here about the murder of Petty Officer Randi Johnson. Can I see the officer in charge?"

The kid eased himself back in his chair. "You're lookin' at him, Special Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs didn't blink. He'd been half-expecting this. He glanced at the desk, looking for some sort of identification plate. "You got a name?"

The kid did blink. "Gary. Gary Fielding." He gathered himself together. "I'm the Chief of Police here in Starksville."

"Chief Fielding." Gibbs stuck out his hand, pretending that he met police chiefs who looked like they didn't need to shave every day and twice on Tuesdays. "Jethro Gibbs. What can you tell me about my petty officer?"

"Uh…" Chief Fielding glanced at the folder on his desk for support. "Uh, we got it all done." He belatedly realized that he was supposed to shake Gibbs' hand, and stood up to take it. "Wasn't much to it. The other woman was found standing over the body. There was a dent in the skull from the two by four she was holding."

Gibbs nodded, as if taking the kid's word for everything. "You won't mind if me and my team takes a look." It was a statement, not a request.

"Uh, you don't have to—"

"Actually, we do have to," Gibbs interrupted. "Two petty officers makes it a Navy affair. How about we go some place where we can talk?"

"Uh, I can't leave the dispatch desk—"

"You got anyone you can call back to ride a desk for about an hour?"

"Not really. There's only four of us, and Gloria and Dennis are sleeping." Chief Fielding looked around desperately, apparently hoping in vain that the fourth member of the local constabulary would appear at his door. "Uh, maybe your secretary could answer the phone..?"

Gibbs manfully suppressed the guffaw that wanted to emerge. "Officer David isn't a secretary, Chief Fielding."

"And you wouldn't want her answering your phone," DiNozzo couldn't help but add.

To her credit, the smile stayed frozen on Ziva's face. It did, however, grow sharp edges that promised a certain level of mayhem should any inappropriate comments arise. Ziva felt on solid ground with this topic, since the four were returning from a mandatory seminar on sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Ziva had ammunition. Ziva could wait.

Gibbs couldn't. "Maybe we could discuss it right here, chief," he suggested. "Maybe the phones will stay quiet for a bit."

"Maybe they will." The relief on the kid's face suggested that the phones hadn't yet rung at all today, and probably wouldn't for the rest of the week.

DiNozzo couldn't help noticing the college diploma framed in plastic masquerading as wood and tacked to the wall. "That yours?" The date on the document suggested that Police Chief Gary Fielding was older than he looked. Considering that Chief Fielding looked fifteen, DiNozzo was not impressed.

"Yup. Graduated last month."

"And this is your first job? Chief, straight out of school?"

"Yup. I won the shoot out."

McGee raised his eyebrows. "You ran for Chief of Police and won?"

"Nope. It was a shoot out. I shot ninety-four out of a hundred. Beat Gloria by three points."

DiNozzo couldn't believe it. "You mean, you got the job in marksmanship contest? How long have you been a cop?"

Fielding pointed to his diploma. "I was only eligible to become Chief after I graduated. Before that, I did it on weekends and vacations. I've been a cop for four years, ever since I turned eighteen."

DiNozzo swallowed hard, pointedly letting the others know that this was not the career path that DiNozzo himself had followed prior to joining NCIS. That the Baltimore Police Department demanded more credentials from its employees than an eighteenth birthday and peach fuzz on their faces. That DiNozzo himself had risen in the ranks—

Gibbs let the grin ease forth. "Well then, Chief, how 'bout we get down to brass tacks? Wha'cha got?"

Fielding dragged the manila folder over to himself, opening it up to remind himself of the facts and to have something to look at other than the imposing NCIS agent who had seated himself on one of the hard wooden chairs that he'd dragged over to be closer to the desk. "It was an open and shut case, sir." The 'sir' came out automatically. Young Fielding had been raised right. "Randi was home on leave."

"You knew her?" Ziva interrupted from her place on an equally hard wooden chair against the wall.

Fielding nodded. "She was three years ahead of me in school. We all know each other," he added. "Starksville ain't that big. She inherited her folks' place up on Route 561 when they were killed in a car accident, about a year ago. She hadn't been back for a while, not since the funeral when she got emergency leave. I saw her in town, over at Jake's, when she first came in this time."

Gibbs nodded. The produce store had had a tilted and worn sign with that name. "She have anyone with her?"

"Yup. She had a friend, name of Willa Mathis, with her. Said that they served together, in the same department. Which made it all the worse when we had to arrest Ms. Mathis," Fielding said, shaking his head.

"What happened?" Gibbs prompted.

"We got a call from Ms. Mathis," Fielding said promptly. "She thought she could cover things up by calling us in after she whacked Randi, but we could tell. The murder was old, by at least an hour or two. She tried telling us that it was an emergency, but how much of an emergency is it when you don't call anyone for a couple of hours?"

"How do you know that the murder was old?" Gibbs asked.

"Liver temperature," Fielding said. "We don't have much, but we got that."

Gibbs nodded. "We'll need to see the autopsy report, Chief."

That went over the kid's head. "Autopsy report?"

Gibbs got an unhappy feeling. "By your medical examiner?"

"We don't have one, sir. Anything big, we usually send up to County."

"And you didn't consider this big?"

"It was obvious!" the kid defended himself. "I mean, there was blood all around! It wasn't like there was any question that it was murder. We found Mathis with the body, with a two by four with Randi's blood on it and Mathis's fingerprints. It couldn't have been more obvious!"

"What did Petty Officer Mathis have to say?" McGee slipped in, sensing an impending explosion.

"The usual."

"Which was—?" DiNozzo too was ready to jump.

"That she was innocent. It's what they all say," Fielding said, trying for an air of worldly resignation that he'd borrowed from various TV crime shows.

"How about the crime scene?" McGee asked, hoping to get something a little more factual.

"We ran it. No other fingerprints besides Randi's and the suspect's. The blood was all Randi's; Mathis didn't have a scratch on her. We took pictures. No evidence of any intruder. No, it was just the two of them in Randi's house, all alone."

"Motive?" Gibbs kept his tone under control.

"Still working on that. We think that Randi might have willed everything to Mathis. We think that Mathis expected to walk away from this, and a will from Randi would show up in a month or two."

Gibbs thought for a long moment, allowing the silent tension to build. "You have Petty Officer Mathis in custody?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'd like to speak to her."

"You taking over the case?"

"Yes, Chief Fielding, I am."

"Why?" the kid demanded. "Don't you think I did a good job?"

Gibbs avoided the question. "This involves two naval petty officers, chief. That makes it NCIS jurisdiction. We have our own case files to complete. Where are you keeping Petty Officer Mathis?"

"In back," Fielding said sullenly, trying not to sound like a petulant brat.

Gibbs handed out orders. "Ziva, McGee, you two take the crime scene. Read through Chief Fielding's report, and see if you can earn the exorbitant salaries that I pay you by coming up with anything else. Bag and tag everything. I'll arrange for someone to come out here and collect what you find. Chief, where's your morgue? I'd like our own medical examiner to go over the petty officer's body."

"It's over at the funeral parlor," Fielding told him. "If you want it, you'd better hurry. I think the mayor gave orders for the body to be cremated. Our cemetery is getting a little full."

Gibbs looked up in alarm. "DiNozzo!"

"On it, boss." DiNozzo rose from his uncomfortable seat. "You know the phone number, chief?"

"Yellow pages are in the other room," Fielding told him, not budging.

"Thanks." DiNozzo didn't let the sarcasm show—much—as he went after the task.

"I'll interrogate Petty Officer Mathis with Special Agent DiNozzo," Gibbs said, moving on. "You got an interrogation room here? Or do we do it in her cell?"

"Cell will be just fine," Fielding responded. "The interrogation room got taken over by the filing cabinets. Better use for it. Not much need for interrogations until the Navy came around," he sniped.

Gibbs refused to take the bait. "Thank you, Chief Fielding. We'll meet with her now as soon as DiNozzo rescues the corpse."

* * *

Petty Officer Wilma Mathis looked a mess. There was still blood in her hair, although she'd washed her hands clean in the filthy sink in the cell and tried to do the same with her head. She was wearing a gray tee and sweats, both of which also had dried blood on them, and couldn't do much about those either. She looked up dully as Gibbs and DiNozzo entered the gray corridor in front of the bars.

Gibbs wasted no time. "Petty Officer Wilma Mathis?"

She took in his lack of uniform, and incuriously eyed DiNozzo as well. "Who wants to know?"

"Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS," Gibbs introduced himself with a flash of his credentials. "Special Agent DiNozzo."

"You here to take me back to a court-martial?"

"Only if you're guilty," Gibbs told her. "You do it?"

"Does it matter? They say I did."

"Did you?"

"No."

"You got proof?"

"What proof?" Mathis asked bitterly. "I found her, dead on the stairs. There was blood all over the place. That was good enough for them." She jerked her thumb in the general direction of the dispatch office.

"Tell me about what happened." Gibbs folded his arms. "You say you're innocent. Convince me. Tell me your side of it. That's an order, Petty Officer Mathis," he added, before she could sink further into despair. "Talk."

Wilma Mathis sighed heavily, preparing to go over her story yet again. "We came out here a couple of days ago," she started, pushing mousy brown hair behind her ears. "Randi—Petty Officer Johnson invited me. Said she wanted me along, because going to her old house with no one in it spooked her. Her parents died in a car crash about a year ago—did you know that?"

"We have the records," Gibbs told her.

"She was thinking about whether she should sell it or not. She didn't really want to, because she loved the place, but there were a lot of memories for her. I suggested fixing it up, making it different, you know? Randi liked that idea. She had some money from an insurance policy that her parents had, so she could afford to do it right. Randi wasn't sure that she could hire people to come out to Starksville, because it's so far away from everything—"

 _You got that right._ Gibbs heard DiNozzo's thought loud and clear.

"—but she was thinking about it."

"Had she made a decision?" Gibbs asked.

"If she did, she didn't tell me," Wilma said. "We'd only been there a couple of days, just unwinding. We'd been at sea for the past six months," she defended herself. "We got a bunch of groceries and just relaxed, cleaned up the place a bit."

"What did you talk about?"

Wilma colored, the blush stealing up from her neck. "Uh…"

"Men," DiNozzo interpreted.

The blush deepened. "Uh…yeah."

"Any in particular?"

Humiliation was uppermost. "Sir…"

Gibbs understood. "This part can stay confidential, Mathis, unless the case warrants it."

Mathis closed her eyes. "Wilson."

"Commander Wilson, in charge of your unit?"

"Yes, sir," Mathis groaned. "Sir, he's married, with a wife."

"Men are usually married to wives, Petty Officer Mathis. Anything more than talk?"

"No!" Mathis was aghast at the thought. "I mean, just the two of us, we got pretty graphic, begging your pardon—!"

"I think we can understand, Mathis. It was a conversation between two friends. Anyone else discussed?"

"Yes, sir." Barely above a whisper.

"Who?"

"Sir…" Almost a wail.

"Anyone the Navy would be interested in?"

Mathis gave up. "Sir, we ripped every sailor in our unit up and down! Please don't tell them! I'll never be able to show my face in the Comm Room ever again!"

"I think we can probably avoid that, Petty Officer Mathis," Gibbs said, suppressing a grin. "You two talk about anything else?"

"Lots of stuff," Mathis admitted. "We talked about getting out when our tours ended, about going back into civilian life. Randi was talking about going back to school, looking at getting her degree in civil engineering; I wanted to maybe become a cop. Pretty much ruined that idea, haven't I?" she asked bitterly. "Police departments don't hire too many murderers."

"No, but they do hire people who have been cleared of charges," Gibbs reminded her. "Tell me about finding her. When did it happen?"

"Yesterday, early morning," Mathis said promptly. "I went out for a walk. I wanted to listen to the birds chirping, before they shut up during the middle of the day. I got back around nine. I couldn't find her, so I started yelling for her."

"She didn't respond."

"Not a word. I started getting worried, and looked around. I finally found her behind the cellar door. She was already dead. There was a bunch of blood all around, but I was so scared that I started doing CPR before I realized that she was already cold. Then I stopped."

DiNozzo spoke up. "The report said that they found a two by four with your bloody prints on it. How did that happen?"

Mathis frowned. "I had to tear down the cellar door in order to get to her. It wasn't locked, but it was stuck. I finally got it open, and there she was, on the stairs."

"She hit her head?"

"I don't know. There was blood all over. I suppose so. They say that I hit her, right?" Anger gleamed dully in her eyes.

"Did you?"

"No." Sullen.

"Did you see anyone else in the area?" DiNozzo asked.

Mathis shifted her gaze to look at him, clearly debating whether or not to lie. Honor won out. "No. No, I didn't."

Gibbs was truthful with the petty officer. "I can't get you out of here, Mathis. Charges have been filed. But if you're telling the truth—"

"I am, sir."

"—if you're telling the truth, then my people will clear you. Just be patient."

Petty Officer Mathis _looked_ at Gibbs. "Like I got any choice?"

* * *

"I really hope that this is the right place," Ziva complained, using gloved hands to sift through the papers on the coffee table in a room that McGee could only describe as 'a parlor'. It had an old-fashioned air about it, from the upright piano in one corner with a pile of sheet music on one end of the shelf to the floral print that was fading on the loveseat in the opposite corner. The curtains were drawn back and had been, Ziva suspected, since the morning of the murder. There was still a lot of dust around, especially in the corners of the room, but clearly some attempt had been made recently to remove a significant quantity of it.

"It is," McGee affirmed. "There's a picture of Petty Officer Johnson." He pointed to a frame on the wall which showed almost a duplicate to the head shot that he'd pulled up earlier on his laptop driving in. "Her parents must have been very proud of her."

"Who's this?" Ziva picked up a smaller photo of a man in Navy whites. He looked to be a contemporary of Johnson, with the same even features that the petty officer had possessed.

McGee didn't have to look twice. "Johnson's brother. He was killed in Afghanistan three years ago. There's no one left; this is a family that has sacrificed a lot for this country."

"And now the family is extinct." Ziva put the thought aside. It wouldn't help the investigation, railing against the unfairness of life. "These papers are six months old. Nothing recent."

"Maybe we should stop over at the post office," McGee suggested. "She probably had her mail stopped while she was at sea."

"McGee, there is no post office."

"There is, but it's probably a town or two over. Some of these small places pool their resources: schools, post offices, even police forces."

"Not this one," Ziva reminded him. "They have their own police. All four of them. Children."

"Ziva, we've only seen the chief of police. The others might have more experience."

"McGee, I do not consider the ability to herd sheep as experience in law enforcement."

McGee opened his mouth to object, and then closed it again. There was no point. Instead, he moved on to a more pertinent topic. "Where was the body found? Do you think they've cleaned it up yet?"

"It's only a crime scene," Ziva grimaced. "After all, they tried to cremate the body before we could get to it."

"True. Jimmy should be out here any time now to pick it up to bring to Ducky." McGee glanced around to see where they should be searching next. "Giving him the evidence for Abby will make Gibbs happy."

"It will keep him off our backs, you mean." Ziva's depiction fit their boss far more accurately. "There. Through the kitchen. That looks like the entrance to the cellar that the reports described." The pair moved toward the site, McGee snapping their own set of pictures to compare with the few that the Starksville police had taken.

There was a lot of blood, and flies had already moved in. Ziva waved her hand in the air to discourage a few of the more aggressive ones. "I could do without this part of the job. When will Gibbs and Tony join us?"

"They should be here before too long." _Click._ "There's a lot of blood. What do you think happened?" _Click._

Ziva squatted to examine the pattern of blood droplets as well as the pooling of dried blood on the top step. She frowned. "McGee, get a picture of this area, on the wall."

 _Click._ McGee obliged her. "What?"

"Do you notice anything odd?"

"Aside from the fact that there's a lot of blood all over everything?"

"Look at the pattern of droplets, McGee. What do you see?"

McGee stared, trying to understand what Ziva was looking at. It dawned on him. "You're right, Ziva. The droplets are all circular, not elongated as if she were moving."

"More than that, McGee. There is no interruption in the pattern of droplets. There was no second person here to get covered in blood spray and protect the wall." She suddenly perked up her head. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"I heard something." She pulled her gun out from her shoulder holster, ignoring the latex gloves that she was wearing.

McGee hadn't heard anything but he knew better than to doubt the Mossad agent. He carefully set down the camera and drew his own weapon, prepared to back her up. They cat-footed it to the window to investigate the sound.

It was not something either agent expected to see. This was the middle of nowhere; a car-jacking was supposed to take place in a city where it was easy to find cars. There was no evidence as to how the trio of men had arrived at this deserted homestead five miles from the nearest dwelling, only what NCIS eyes were telling them: three thieves trying to break into the rental sedan.

Ziva flung open the front door to Johnson's home and aimed her gun. "NCIS! Freeze!"

That was another unexpected item: carjackers didn't usually come ready to fire back. They tended to like to slink off into the dusk to find an easier target.  
These didn't follow the rules.

One of them, already on guard, loosed a couple rounds, yelling something incomprehensible to his fellows.

Incomprehensible to McGee, but not to Ziva. She shrieked back at them, something that McGee chose to interpret as "come back here, pond scum, so that I can pound your ears into your skulls."

Not only did the carjackers not follow the rules, they elected not to adhere to Ziva's impolitely phrased requests. Firing repeatedly so that the two NCIS agents were forced to remain safe behind the walls of the Johnson abode, the three retreated to the safety of the trees.

"C'mon!" Ziva yelled. "Get them!" She dashed out into the open, McGee in her wake, dropping behind the sedan for cover. The little compact job that Johnson and Mathis had rented to drive up here was just further on, and Ziva prepared to dash to its meager cover to get closer to the carjackers.

"We should call for back up, Ziva." McGee pulled out his cell.

"No time!" Ziva popped up from behind the sedan, firing a shot and running after the three into the woods, already halfway to the tree line.

The roar of a car engine reached their ears and a silver SUV shot out from the bushes.

"After them!" Ziva reversed her course, heading back for the sedan.

McGee was closer. He dove into the driver's seat— _gonna let Ziva drive? Are you crazy?_ —and jammed the key into the ignition. The sedan's powerful V-8 revved into action. Ziva threw herself into the passenger's seat. "Go! Go!"

McGee stomped on the gas, and the sedan leaped forward, bounding over the rutted dirt drive in front of the house.

"Faster! They're getting away!"

"I've got the gas pedal down to the floor, Ziva!"

Ziva lowered her window, sticking her gun out and trying to aim. "Hold the car steady, McGee!"

"On these roads? You've got to be kidding!"

Ziva fired. "Missed!"

"We're lucky you didn't hit our own tire," McGee muttered under his breath. He begged the car for more speed, and the V-8 responded by inching up closer to the silver SUV ahead of them.

Then Ziva screeched, "Look out! They're going to—"

 _Bang!_

The sedan slewed around. McGee fought to keep the car on the dirt road, settled for fishtailing to a stop without hitting the hundred year old oak on the side of the road.

The SUV shot merrily away into the distance. Ziva could swear that she heard the occupants laughing as they fled.

"—shoot," she finished her statement angrily. "Couldn't you dodge?"

"I was a little busy keeping the car on the road, Ziva," McGee returned sourly. He yanked at the door handle, surprised that the frame hadn't collapsed under the stress of the last few moments. He walked around to look at the front tire: flat. He kicked it, hurting his toe in the process and refusing to acknowledge it in the presence of the Israeli agent. "Did you get the license plate?"

"The first two letters were A and N," she told him. "I couldn't see anything more. We didn't get close enough," she added pointedly.

"Sorry." McGee wasn't sure if he meant that or not. No matter; he walked toward the back of the car.

"Where are you going, McGee?"

"To get the spare tire." He sighed. "Wonder where the nearest gas station is?"

Ziva shook her head dolefully. "Not close by."

* * *

DiNozzo finished loading the chilled and wrapped corpse into the coroner's wagon. Jimmy Palmer had just arrived from D.C. with instructions to obtain the corpse for immediate transport and, considering the hour and his desire to return to the nation's capital, had pushed DiNozzo into rapid action. DiNozzo stretched stiffened muscles; the late Petty Officer Johnson had not been a large woman but the wrappings made for a hefty package to manhandle for only two of them. None of the workers at the morgue had offered to assist, and neither had any of the local cops. DiNozzo looked grimly at the coroner's wagon parked outside of Belker's Funeral and Ice Cream Parlor. The large truck was filthy and covered in mud kicked up from the country roads that Dr. Mallard's assistant had traveled over for the last four hours.

Jimmy too stretched weary muscles. He looked up at the sky, admiring the moon shining down on them. "The moon always looks brighter out here, away from the city."

"Yeah, well, the light pollution is everywhere these days," DiNozzo told him. He glanced around. "I see that Ducky was able to avoid the trip."

"Dr. Mallard wasn't able to come himself," Palmer agreed. "Something about his mother, and some Welsh Corgis."

DiNozzo shuddered. He remembered those beasts all too well. He also remembered Ducky's senile mother equally well, and privately thought that Ducky was welcome to her. "I suppose it doesn't matter. The corpse is already three days old, and was just minutes away from being roasted. Now it's on ice."

"As long as the smell doesn't come into the cab, I'm fine with it," Palmer reassured him.

"You going to be okay driving back tonight? It's what, three hours away?"

"Closer to four," Palmer said, "and yes, it's perfectly fine. I can use the overtime." He automatically glanced upward again. Then he slid a sly look toward the sign over the building where the corpse had been stored and almost cremated and couldn't help the grin at the juxtaposition of the two businesses that Mr. Belker engaged in. "I'd better get going. The weather predictions are for a big blow."

"Jimmy, that won't happen until at least late tomorrow." DiNozzo too had listened to the weather reports and the sky was currently clear; well, _mostly_ clear. "You're borrowing trouble."

"Can't be too careful. You know what some of these roads are like outside of the city." Jimmy hoisted himself into the cab of the NCIS truck. He leaned out of the window, turning the key in the ignition, and pointed at the sign over the funeral home. "Enjoy your ice cream."

* * *

Tired. Disgruntled. Entirely not happy over the whole situation. DiNozzo listened to Gibbs's half of the telephone conversation on his cell, watching Gibbs get more and more annoyed at the lack of cell service. The clouds starting to roll in were playing havoc with the signal, and Gibbs didn't even have the option whacking any of those clouds on their heads. _Lucky clouds…_

"Yes, sir. We left after the seminar was over, sometime around eleven." Pause to listen. There was someone on the other end discussing something that Gibbs and company had or hadn't done recently, and DiNozzo was still trying to figure out what. At shortly before midnight, it had to be important according to somebody. "What? Say again, sir?" Another pause. "No, sir. I was with my team from approximately seven, at breakfast, until we left Philly." His glance roved over the three NCIS agents who were watching every taut line in their boss's body. "A couple of breaks. Not long enough for what you're suggesting." Last pause. "Yes, sir. I'll have them write up statements, get McGee to forward them to you via email. I think you can rule us out for the moment, sir." With a dose of sarcasm that didn't quite manage to get covered over. "Sir, you need to know that two of my people had an attempted car-jacking—" Gibbs broke off. "Sir? Are you there?" He hung up with an expression of disgust, glaring at the bars in the screen that told him that the signal strength didn't come up to expectations.

"Boss?" DiNozzo was the one to venture the question.

Gibbs didn't have to ask what his team wanted to know. "There was a murder, DiNozzo. They found a body, tortured to death, at the Philly hotel where the sexual harassment seminar was held."

"That's going a little far for sexual harassment, even with those biddies conducting it," was DiNozzo's take on the matter. "Just listening to them was torture enough."

"They think we've involved?" That was Ziva.

"They're questioning everyone," Gibbs clarified. "The Philadelphia M.E. is putting the time of death around noon, but the body could have been dumped and left for dead before that. Anybody see anything suspicious at that hotel?"

Three shrugs, three shaken heads.

"You think there might be a connection between the trio that tried to steal the rental, and the dead body, boss?" McGee asked.

"Since I don't have any more information than you do, McGee, what makes you think I have an answer?" Gibbs glared at his agent. "Cells aren't working up in these mountains, and we don't have secure communications back to Washington or Philly. McGee, can you run some sort of line or something, so that I can get through to Ducky and Abby? The Philly case can take care of itself, but I need results from our own Forensics. We've got our own case to work on."

"Can do, boss."

"Good. Get on it."

McGee looked stricken. "Uh…boss?"

"What?"

"It's, uh, eleven o'clock at night."

"Your point, McGee?"

"I, uh, the stores are closed and I, uh, I'm going to need some supplies, stuff to hardwire my laptop to—"

"All right," Gibbs grumbled, interrupting so that he didn't have to listen to techno-babble. "First thing in the morning." His next focus was the rental sedan. "Anything in there that three carjackers would want? Three carjackers speaking Arabic in the middle of a grove of West Virginian trees?"

"We have already looked, Gibbs," Ziva told him. "The sedan is clean, except for where Tony tossed his gum wrappers."

"Hey! I cleaned up after myself!"

"Liar." Ziva turned back to Gibbs. "Chief Fielding has obtained housing for us for the night, at a hotel five miles up the road. He recommends that we procure dinner at the produce store before proceeding there. His opinion of the restaurant affixed to the hotel was not complimentary."

Gibbs held in the sigh. "Then that's what we'll do."

* * *

The next morning beamed brightly, with only a single cloud to mar the blue of the sky. That would change, Gibbs knew. He didn't need the overly jovial weather-caster on the tube in his room to tell him that; he could feel it in his bones.

That put a bit of urgency into his plans. He had a case to solve, the circumstances involving Petty Officer Johnson's sudden death, and he'd also like to get back home in time to put in a little work on the boat in his basement. He stared at his reflection in the mirror in the small but clean bathroom in his room, using the image to scrape the face fuzz off but otherwise not observing what was happening in front of him. He was too busy thinking.

Gibbs didn't like how this was shaping up. There was no coherency in what was happening; everything seemed entirely too random. The two petty officers were friends, and there simply wasn't anything to suggest otherwise. Motive? Not there. There weren't any obvious men in the picture that they might fight over and as for Fielding's theory about Mathis wanting Johnson's farm? Gibb snorted. Nice as it was, Johnson's place wasn't worth much in cold hard cash. The house was run down through lack of upkeep, and the land too hilly to work for a profit. If anything, the place needed a heavy duty infusion of cash and then it could be turned into a modest bed & breakfast, but that was about all.

On the other hand, there was the attempted car-jacking. Things like that simply didn't happen in a small town like Starksville where everyone knew everyone else. Also, the thieves spoke Arabic. Ziva had been clear on that point: Arabic. Not Farsi, not Urdu, and very definitely not Hebrew or even French. That was another point that was clear: nobody in Starksville spoke Arabic. Chief Fielding allowed as how perhaps Jake Winslow and Jim-Bob Allen might know a couple of words, since they finished their tour in Afghanistan two months ago, but everyone else who could have come in contact with a Middle Eastern tongue was still overseas in the thick of it. Gibbs sighed. Arabic was not the language that most Afghani's tended to speak, and Fielding had said that both Winslow and Allen were tow-headed blonds, not the swarthy and dark individuals that Ziva and McGee had chased off. Why were a trio of Arabic-speaking hoodlums plying their trade in Starksville? Gibbs didn't like coincidences, and this was too big a coincidence to ignore.

Well, the day should bring answers. Gibbs plotted out the plan of attack in his head. McGee he'd assign to getting a decent and secure link back to headquarters. Gibbs needed the information from both Ducky and Abby, and it would take a couple of hours for McGee to drive to a tech store to get the cords and nonsense he needed to do the job. Too bad the cell service was so bad up here that they couldn't count on it. Hit or miss, that's what it was, and certainly not good enough to handle anything as heavy duty as an internet signal, was McGee's take on it. Gibbs decided to take the other two back to the Johnson homestead to finish the crime scene. There was something going on, and it sure wasn't sitting in Gibbs's hotel room.

He wiped the remainder of the shaving cream from his jaw, put up his tools, and headed out.

* * *

It was the first time Gibbs had seen the Johnson place, and he decided that he liked what he saw. There was an honesty to the house, a straightforward sort of character that warmed the soul.

It was a single floor dwelling, sprawling along the small area of flat ground before the land took a sharp rise, although around the corner he spotted the entrance to what was probably a cellar, and he revised his opinion as to how many levels the home had. That was right; he reminded himself that Petty Officer Johnson's body had been found on the stairs leading up from that cellar. The home had to have had at least two stories.

The place was surrounded by a single strand of yellow crime scene tape placed there, Ziva had told him with a sniff, by NCIS. The locals cleared the scene shortly after discovering the body and hadn't bothered with anything more than a few graphic shots of the corpse. Given the laxity of the department, Gibbs had to honestly say that he wasn't surprised. In fact, the concept of taking pictures of the scene had probably occurred to them only because Chief Fielding confided that he was a devoted fan of more than one CSI show and wanted to put the single course in Forensic Science that he'd taken to use.

Gibbs himself expected his team to do substantially better.

He pushed the door open, using the key that Fielding had supplied. "How far did you get?" he asked.

"Not far," Ziva admitted. "First, we took pictures of the stairs where Petty Officer Johnson's body was found, including detailed photos of the blood spatters on both the walls and the stair treads. I then began to go through the papers on the coffee table, and McGee started in that corner of the room, taking additional photos." She pointed to the area beside the upright piano. The sheet music on top of the piano cabinet looked to have been disturbed by a tall man—such as McGee—walking by. "We then heard the thieves, and dashed out to try to apprehend them."

"How about where the body was found?" Gibbs looked around for the entrance to the cellar.

"In the kitchen," Ziva directed him. "The entrance is there."

"I'll start there. You two work here, cover the rest of house." Gibbs moved off. "Look not only for anything about the crime, but something that those car-jackers might have been after."

The entrance to the cellar was undisturbed by anything more than the flies that Ziva had complained of earlier but even those were drifting off with the blood dried and no longer appetizing to insectoid appetites. Gibbs squatted to examine the site, looking to confirm what the Mossad officer had told him last night.

He saw immediately what Ziva had spotted: the drops of blood were not consistent with a crime scene such as the local police had proposed. The blood had pooled on the top step and nowhere else, and the drops were perfectly round where they spattered. Some of the blood had welled up and dripped down onto the next step below, but all of the individual drops were round. If the corpse had been moving, trying to escape from an attacker, the drops would have been flung directionally and would have landed in an elongated shape. That hadn't occurred here.

Could Johnson have crawled up the stairs and expired after being hit? Not a chance; the only blood was on the top of the stairs, and Gibbs couldn't see Petty Officer Mathis being careful enough to clean up the bottom steps and not the top.

Where had Mathis gotten the two by four that the locals found in her hand? Gibbs looked further and spotted a bin just outside the kitchen door where the family had kept firewood. Most of the wood was kindling and brush pulled in from the trees out back with a number of logs chopped into sensible chunks but interspersed with saw-cut boards left over from various projects. Clearly Mathis had grabbed the first thing that she could get her hands on to try to pry the cellar door open. Gibbs peered more closely at the door frame, noting where it had splintered. The wood looked fresh at the splintered area, with even a slender smear of blood. That made sense, Gibbs decided. Mathis was found with blood on her hands. She could have been trying to help Johnson, and grabbed the edge of the door frame for support.

Gibbs headed down into the cellar, stepping heavily over the step with the most dried blood to avoid disturbing the evidence. Once down on the floor—dirt, actually—he pulled out his flashlight. The single bare bulb that he tugged into operation to illuminate the area did a poor job. Shadows roamed the entire cellar, darting in and amongst the various crates of cans and the jars that someone had put up when the season called for such. There was a sad looking bicycle in one corner, a remnant of Johnson's childhood, and carefully covered in plastic was a very upscale doll house. Gibbs peered inside the doll house and saw a dainty chandelier still hanging in the miniature dining room over an elegant dining table. The tiny plates and cups were obviously glued onto the table for they hadn't moved in years, dust settling thickly over them.

Gibbs played the flash over the rest of the room: nothing. Nothing to suggest that Johnson was a target for a murder, nothing to suggest that anyone intent on stealing a car had been in here. He gave up, and headed back upstairs.

"Anything?" he asked of the other two.

DiNozzo shook his head. "Not a thing, boss. If there's a pot of gold here, we sure didn't find it."

"Any sign of Ziva's friends?"

Ziva glared. "They are not my friends, Gibbs."

"Just an expression, Ziva. I'll take that as a no." Gibbs looked at his watch. "Let's get back to Police Headquarters. McGee should have a link set up by now, and I want to hear what Ducky and Abby have to say."

* * *

"I appreciate your help with this," McGee told Dennis, one of the four local police. "You're sure that Chief Fielding doesn't mind you coming in early?"

"Heck, no." The man was tall and lean, nattily dressed in dockers and a polo, looking completely unlike a member of the pavement-pounding department. He would have looked to be at home in an upscale country club getting ready to join the lads for a quick chukker of polo. "I've been waiting for something like this to happen for the past three years. I'm hoping that it will show these people just how much we need to come into the New Millennium and computerize."

"You don't have any computers at all?"

"Oh, we have a computer," Dennis scoffed. "It's in that box." He jerked his thumb at a large cardboard entity collecting dust in the corner of the room. "They haven't let me take it out."

"Isn't that a little odd?"

Dennis snickered. "I think Gary's afraid that once I get started, I'll take over the department with it, and he'll actually have to go back to walking the town once in a while."

Considering that the 'town' consisted of four buildings, McGee couldn't see that as much of a deterrent. Still, perhaps it was a matter of pride.

"Do you work much with computers?" he asked politely.

"I wish. I used to have a computer repair shop," Dennis said wistfully.

"What happened?"

"I went out of business. Nobody around here _wanted_ a computer, much less needed to get it fixed." Dennis sighed. He watched what McGee was doing. "What are you doing?"

"Hardwiring my laptop to the phone system," McGee explained. "Normally I can use WiFi, and I don't need a landline to access the net. But up here, in these mountains, the signal isn't strong enough to accommodate what I need. You see, NCIS, as part of the military, has additional security demands which require more bandwidth to get through. Plus, Special Agent Gibbs wants a video conference with our people back home, and that takes a lot more than just a little cell call that drops out every so often."

He saw Dennis struggle to keep up. "You think we could get something like that out here?"

"Here?" McGee raised his eyebrows. "I don't see why not. In fact, it might even be useful for identifying criminals. The D.C. police department uses them all the time, even writes their reports on them. Makes it easier to file."

Dennis got a forlorn look on his face. "Agent McGee—"

"Call me Tim."

"Tim." Dennis acknowledged the familiarity with a smile. "Tim, the kind of stuff we deal with here in Starksville is a call from someone asking for help in getting their cows back in the pasture. Or a call because Jerome O'Donnelly has passed out drunk in the yard again, and his wife's too tiny to drag him up onto the porch to sleep it off." He snorted. "We've pretty much got our 'criminals' sorted out, and most of them are cows named Bessie."

"At least cows don't shoot at you," McGee observed.

Dennis brightened. "True. That was pretty exciting, Tim, what you reported with the other agent—what was her name?"

"Officer David."

"Her." Dennis's eyes shone. "Does that happen often?"

"Too often." It was a safe answer. "Plug that end into the phone jack, will you? Thanks, Dennis." McGee pulled his laptop out of its protective case, automatically reaching for the dull gray data stick that fell onto the floor when the laptop emerged. He frowned. "Where did that come from?"

Dennis got a strange look on his face. "Your laptop case, Tim."

"No, I mean, that's not where I usually put my data sticks. I have a pouch that they don't fall out of. I don't remember putting one there." McGee examined the small item. "In fact, I don't even remember getting this. This isn't a brand that I usually get, and I know the cheapskates in Accounting won't spring for this many gigs. I don't think this is mine." He started to insert it into his laptop to discover the contents, and then stopped himself. "Gibbs'll be here any moment. I'd better do this later. Right now, we need to get a video feed established and that may take a little while."

"Mind if I watch?"

"Fine, but there's not much to see," McGee warned him.

"I think there is," Dennis assured him. The man wasn't looking at the computer screen.

McGee uneasily turned his attention back to his laptop and his work. Was Dennis undressing him with his eyes?

* * *

Gibbs pulled the rental sedan into the same parking slot that he'd used yesterday, swearing that the dust hadn't budged an inch but that the weeds had sprouted up by four. He cast a weather eye up to the heavens; yup, the clouds were beginning to pile up. Wouldn't rain for a while, but it was coming. Gibbs hoped to have this thing finished up in time to hustle it out of here before the downpour started. He was a good driver, but the best driving in the world wouldn't get them past a mudslide or a creek that decided to challenge the Potomac for volume. He didn't mind small towns like Starksville—liked 'em, in fact—but there was a boat that needed working on and it was sitting in his basement a couple hundred miles from here.

He hoped that McGee had done his thing, had set up a video conference link back to Ducky and Abby so that he could get the information he needed. He didn't like the way the kid ran his department, but Fielding was the duly appointed chief of police, and ramming stuff down the kid's throat would only get Mathis into more hot water and drag Leroy Jethro Gibbs down with her. No, Gibbs would do this the proper way and then let Fielding figure out a way to get out of this mess himself because Gibbs was becoming more and more convinced that this wasn't a simple case of one petty officer bashing another over the head. There was something going on—who in hell ever heard of carjackers traipsing out to a farm to grab a cheap rental sedan?—but Mathis was the unlucky soul who'd gotten dragged into it.

There was a man about Gibbs' age leaning up against the wall, a gun at his waist and a baton on the other side. Gibbs eyed him cautiously. There was something about him that Gibbs recognized, something about the way that the man handled his weapon. Who was he? More to the point: _what_ was he? Gibbs tried to decide whether or not to greet the man politely.

The man took the decision out of Gibbs' hands. He stuck out his hand. "You must be the visiting cops. Jasper Figgerworth, one of the cops here."

 _This_ was a man that looked like a cop: no uniform, but he didn't need one to exude authority. This was the person that Gibbs expected would be in charge, a no-nonsense type who would keep the peace without needing to resort to fines and jails and such. This was the sort of local cop who knew where all the make-out spots were, behind the bleachers and in the woods, and kept those places from turning kids into parents before their time.

"Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, Officer." Gibbs took the proffered hand, found the man's grip to be as firm as his face. "My team: Special Agent DiNozzo and Officer David."

"Miss." Jasper would have tipped his hat if he were wearing one.

"You've probably met my other agent, McGee?"

"The one with the computer, right?" Jasper made a face. "Dennis made off with him, straight away. They're thick as thieves in the back room."

"Just as long as they get the job done," was Gibbs' reply. "Your guy any good with computers?"

"Who, Dennis?" Jasper sniggered. " _He_ thinks he is. Why do you think the dang computer Gary bought is still in the box?"

One corner of Gibbs' mouth crept skyward. "Why don't we see if my agent is any better?"

"Why don't we do that thing, Gibbs?" Jasper gestured; ladies first. Holding the door for the visiting talent.

DiNozzo held back. His instincts, honed to perfection on the Baltimore force, were aroused.

"Mr. Figgerworth…"

"Call me Jasper, son. We don't get fancy around here."

"Jasper, then. Uh, why…?"

"Ain't I chief, son?" Jasper cast a knowing eye on DiNozzo. "You know how much paperwork goes into bein' in charge these days, young feller?"

"Uh, yes, sir, I do."

"Then you know the answer," Jasper told him, holding in the guffaw.

"You mean, it wasn't the shoot out that Chief Fielding talked about?"

"Oh, it was," Jasper assured DiNozzo. "Gary won it, fair and square, over Gloria."

"But you…?"

"Son, I ain't no fool," Jasper said firmly. He winked. "My last qualifiers, I shot ninety-seven out of a hundred. 'Ceptin' on that day. Must've been an off day."

* * *

"McGee! You ready yet?" Gibbs walked in, followed by not only his team but Chief Fielding and Jasper. Dennis was still there, looking over McGee's shoulder in awe until Tony DiNozzo entered.

"Just about, boss." McGee did some final tapping on the keyboard, then swiveled the laptop around so that the others could see the screen. "Sit down here, boss. The webcam isn't very large."

"Whatever." Gibbs sat, with both Ziva and DiNozzo choosing to hover behind so that they too could see into Abby's lab several hundred miles away.

"Hey, Gibbs," Abby chirped into the other end of the signal. Dark pigtails bounced over her shoulder, not quite hiding the spider web tattoo that decorated her neck. Today was a pink day; shocking pink, in fact. The color nearly caused the little laptop's screen to implode, trying to keep up with the intensity. Abby pushed her face into the screen. "When are you guys coming home?"

"When we're finished here, Abby," Gibbs replied. "I hope you've got some good news for me."

"Gibbs, don't I always?" Abby tapped her own keyboard, exchanging her image for that of red circles bobbing about on the screen: red blood cells. "I ran an analysis on the blood on the two by four that you sent me, and compared it to Petty Officer Johnson's blood. There hasn't been enough time for a DNA match, but I was able to confirm that the blood on the wood and Petty Officer Johnson's blood are the same type. That's the good news, Gibbs. You want the bad?"

"Lay it on me, Abbs."

"Petty Officer Johnson's blood type is O positive, Gibbs. Like forty percent of the American population is O positive. That's not going to rule out very many people, and it doesn't rule out Petty Officer Mathis. I got her blood type from her records, and she's O positive also."

"You got anything else, Abby?"

"Of course, Gibbs." Abby's cheerful face popped back onto screen. "Ducky gave me prelims on the bruise that was on Petty Officer Johnson's head, the one that might have come from the two by four."

"And did it?" Gibbs hurried the Forensics expert along.

"Nope. Nada. Not a chance, Gibbs. The bruise was circular, came from contact with a single point. If it had come from the two by four, then it would have been a long line kind of bruise and not a big round dot."

"Good work, Abby." Gibbs meant it. "I'll bring you one of those caffeine things when I get back. You got anything more for me?"

"Nope. But Ducky does. I made him wait, Gibbs, 'cause if he'd gone first you never would've listened to me."

"Abbs, I always listen to you."

"No, you don't, Gibbs. But I love you anyway." Abby disappeared from view, only her arm pulling Dr. Ducky Mallard onto the screen.

"Jethro?"

"Ducky." Gibbs gestured to the three locals behind him, cuddled into the crowd of NCIS agents. "Chief Fielding, and his men Jasper and Dennis."

"Not that I can see them, Jethro, through this miniscule high tech version of a telescope but greetings, gentlemen."

"They can see you, Ducky. That's good enough. Abby thinks you've got something for me?"

"Yes, I do, Jethro. Mr. Palmer returned sometime after midnight with the dearly departed, so I wasn't able to get to her until early this morning. Bearing in mind your request for haste, I sent up the usual samplings to Abby—"

"The results, doctor?" There were times to let the medical examiner ramble. This was not one of them.

"Jethro, there was no murder. This was death by natural causes."

"What?" Gary Fielding was aghast. "Of course it was a murder! We have the murder weapon! Randi was a young girl! She wouldn't have died of natural causes! Mathis killed her!"

"I'm afraid not, young man. The results of the autopsy were very clear. Petty Officer Johnson died of a cerebral aneurysm that chose that moment in time to break open. The blood that you found at the sight flowed out of her like water, leaking through her mouth and making it appear as though she was struck."

"But…the bruise!" Fielding was having a hard time giving up his case. "There was a bruise on her head. Where did that come from?"

"I cannot say for certain, young man, but a possible and certainly plausible scenario might be that our dear young petty officer, experiencing a sudden and severe headache as the aneurysm began to leak, climbed the stairs to seek help from her friend. Feeling faint, she toppled over and struck her head just prior to expiring." Ducky shook his head. "I am sorry, Jethro, but no murder occurred here. Petty Officer Randi Johnson was the unfortunate victim of the frailties of her own body. Even had the aneurysm chosen to rear its ugly head while Petty Officer Johnson was near to a high level of medical and surgical care, she still might not have survived the experience. I must rule this as death due to natural causes, Jethro," he concluded.

Gibbs sat back in his chair. "Well, that puts a new spin on things," he said. "You sure, Ducky?"

"Quite sure, Jethro. Natural causes, unquestionably."

The members of both executive departments, NCIS and local constabulary, paused to inhale that pronouncement. Every person there contemplated as to how this new information, indisputable and stark, affected the various aspects of the problems in front of them.

"Jethro? Are you there? Did you hear me?"

"Yes, Ducky, I'm here." Gibbs was the first to recover. "Anything _else_ you think I ought to know?" His team could hear the annoyance in his voice: not only had they been diverted to this supposed 'case', but it turned out that the whole excursion could have been avoided had the locals actually followed procedure by turning the body over to a coroner. Gibbs could have been hard at work at his desk, cleaning off the papers that were piling up there, so that he could go home and work on that damn boat.

But then there wouldn't be the mystery of the Arabic-speaking carjackers in this little town that barely acknowledged that the outside world existed, let alone had actual 'foreigners' among them. Starksville hadn't had a case of grand theft auto since the Fifties, Fielding had told them, when the state troopers had chased a varmint through the center of town. The theft of the auto had occurred a county over, but the chase zipped through Starksville so they dutifully counted it among their statistics for that decade.

"Not at the moment, Jethro. Will you be returning today?"

"Hopefully, Ducky. Hopefully." Gibbs signaled to McGee to end the transmission. He turned in the chair so that he could face the young chief of police, ignoring the huge grin on Jasper's face where Fielding couldn't see it. "Well?"

"Uh…"

"I think you have a suspect to cut loose." Gibbs' voice was exceptionally mild, and his team held their collective breath. Not one of them liked to hear that note, not when they'd made a mistake. Unless they were very _very_ lucky, an eruption could follow. "And an apology to make."

"I—" Fielding cut himself off, ugly red seeping up from around his neck. He took a long moment to control himself. "I'll get the key." He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

"DiNozzo. David. Go with him," Gibbs ordered shortly. "Bring Petty Officer Mathis here."

"On it." No jokes. It wasn't a time for humor. It was time to get an innocent suspect out from behind the bars where she'd sat for the better part of three days.

"McGee."

"Yes, boss?"

"Go get coffee, and none of that dish water in the back room. Petty Officer Mathis deserves better. You. Go with him," Gibbs directed Dennis. "He doesn't have enough hands to carry all the cups for everyone."

"Yes, sir." Gibbs wasn't Dennis's direct supervisor, but that didn't matter. Escape from the simmering volcano was a good thing. Dennis fled, McGee trailing after him.

One left: Jasper Figgerworth.

Gibbs regarded his counterpart, fire in his eye. "I suppose you have a reason for letting things get this out of control."

"I ain't the chief—"

"Stow it," Gibbs snarled. "We both know what's going on here, and we both know that you screwed up. If Petty Officer Johnson's body had been cremated without a proper autopsy, Petty Officer Mathis could have ended up doing fifteen to twenty for a crime she didn't commit! Not a particularly good way to treat one of this country's finest!"

"You're right, Special Agent Gibbs," Figgerworth admitted grimly. "For what it's worth, I never intended for it to go this far. Young Fielding—"

"Maybe next time this town will award positions based on ability and not on who can pick up a gun and shoot." The words were soft, but cutting.

Figgerworth flushed. "I'll take your words to mind, Agent Gibbs."

Chief Fielding came back in, Petty Officer Mathis following him with a bewildered look. DiNozzo and Ziva trailed behind, making sure that everyone crowded into the room. Mathis looked disheveled and pale, and in dire need of a shower and the chance to go outside to remember what sunshine looked like.

Gibbs rose and solicitously and ostentatiously offered Mathis a chair. She sank down, still not quite understanding what was going on. "Sir…"

"Did Chief Fielding tell you what the story was, Petty Officer Mathis?"

"Yes, sir," she replied faintly. "Something about Randi not being murdered?"

"That's right," Gibbs confirmed. "After three days"—Gibbs was not above digging in the knife—"after three days, an autopsy on Petty Officer Johnson was finally performed." Was there just a little bit of emphasis on the word 'finally'? "The medical examiner was very clear: Petty Officer Randi Johnson died of natural causes. She had an aneurysm. There was nothing that anyone could have done for her, let alone you. You're cleared, Mathis." _Didn't I tell you that I'd find out the truth?_

"I'm…" Mathis swallowed hard. "I'm free?"

"Fielding?" Gibbs turned to his 'opposite number', pointedly not mentioning the kid's title.

"There are a few formalities—"

"Chief Fielding." There was a world of meaning in those words, but they didn't come from Gibbs. They came from Jasper Figgerworth. The older man crossed his arms.

Gary Fielding coughed. "Uh…yeah, you're free to go."

"Her things?" Ziva prodded.

"Yeah. Right. Uh, Jasper, would you—"

"I think _you_ have the key to the lock box, chief." Jasper wasn't letting him get away with anything.

"Uh, right." Fielding backed away toward the exit. "I'll get your stuff."

"Thank you." Mathis's voice trailed off. She looked to Gibbs, as the one who seemed to be most in charge. "I'm really free to go? Sir?"

"You are, Mathis." Gibbs kept his voice gentle. "You got a place to go?"

"Anywhere but here." The words were heartfelt, and she suddenly remembered the older cop still in the room. "Begging your pardon, sir—"

"We got it coming, missy." Figgerworth accepted the blame. "Don't blame you for thinking poorly of us."

"Do you have a way to get out of town and back to your ship?" DiNozzo asked kindly.

"I've still got the rental car, back at Randi's house. It's in my name, not Randi's." Tears were close, they could all see that. Relief was pushing her over the edge.

Gibbs determined to cut this short for the sake of the petty officer. For the locals, he would have drawn it out all day. "You can take the car, Petty Officer Mathis, but I can't let you into the house. It's still a crime scene."

"Gibbs?" That was Jasper.

Gibbs ignored him for the moment. "Ziva, DiNozzo, you two arrange to remove Petty Officer Mathis's things from the scene. Catalog them; clear them. Get an address from Petty Officer Mathis as to where she'll be for the next week, just in case we need to ask her some questions."

Ziva took the petty officer by the arm. "Come," she said. "We'll stop at my hotel room, so that you can wash up."

Mathis nodded, still barely able to believe that her personal nightmare was over. "My clothes…"

"You have more at the house. You can change there."

Mathis agreed. She plucked at the ones she was still wearing after three days, trying to avoid the blood stains that were still there. "I don't ever want to see these again."

"I will dispose of them," Ziva promised her. "Come, Tony."

Jasper Figgerworth waited until the trio had left, and it was just himself and Gibbs. "You sound as if this thing ain't over, Gibbs."

"It's not," Gibbs told him. "I've still got a mystery: why did those carjackers come all the way out here to Starksville? I picked up the rental in D.C., and it sat in a parking garage for a day and a half in a Philly hotel. Why were they after it?" He folded his arms. "Or does it have something to do with Starksville? Talk, Jasper."

"I've been telling you the truth, Gibbs. Starksville is a quiet little place. Least it was until you all showed up." Sullen.

"Get any strangers passing through? Either for the day or a little longer? You've got some nice fishing around these parts, Jasper."

"We do at that." Jasper, his brain prodded into action, began working. "We had a couple and their two boys stop into Belker's place for ice cream on their way back home. Nice folks; didn't look like any problem. They moved on after an hour or so."

"Anyone else?"

"I can ask the others. There was that pair of men, almost a week ago, Gibbs." Jasper tried to remember the details. "Thought they looked a mite fishy. Said they were investigating the area, planning to set up a bunch of stores somewhere. Did a lot of looking around."

"You get any names?"

"Nope, but I told 'em to go look up Ms. Hester, over in Buckeye. She does all our real estate stuff when we need it."

"You get hold of her, Jasper." It didn't matter that Jasper wasn't in Gibbs' chain of command. "You find out their names."

* * *

DiNozzo and Ziva escorted Petty Officer Mathis out to their sedan. DiNozzo pulled the keys out of his pocket, unlocking the doors. "The motel is about five miles up the road in the opposite direction," he mentioned. "Like Gibbs said, we can't let you get cleaned up in the house; it's still a crime scene, and we might lose some pieces of evidence down the drain. You want to pick up your clothes first, or get cleaned up first?"

Mathis looked at herself, trying unsuccessfully not to look at the blood of her friend that still stained her filthy clothing. She peered about, bewildered at her sudden change in status, and DiNozzo felt that same little twist of annoyance that his boss had. This woman, this _soldier,_ has been mis-treated, and deserved better. She would be getting it, DiNozzo promised himself. Mathis looked around once again, as if hoping to see the local motel within eyeshot. "I need clothes."

"The house it is, then." DiNozzo opened the door for her, handing her gently inside, attempting to exchange a glance with Ziva.

Ziva's attention was elsewhere: across the dusty street. "Tony. That silver SUV over there."

"What SUV? That one?"

"It looks familiar." The SUV in question was parked across the street in front of the merchandise shop, trying to blend in with the four other vehicles waiting there for their owners to finish shopping.

"Check it out," DiNozzo ordered, knowing that the Israeli officer would do that no matter he thought. There were only several thousand silver SUV's in this state alone, let alone across the country. However, he had relied on her gut instincts more than once, and was fully prepared to do so again. "Mathis, you stay here. Don't move from here."

"Yes, sir." Mathis was unarmed.

Ziva crossed the wide and dusty street, heading straight for the target vehicle. DiNozzo scanned the area, looking for anyone who might look like Arabic-speaking carjackers. The area was empty of pedestrians, only a mother with a toddler getting into a mini-van and strapping the child into an approved safety seat in the back, the mini-van parked well away from the SUV. The mother had likely been picking up a dose of caffeine, DiNozzo decided idly. She'd parked in front of the produce store that also sold some damn good coffee. DiNozzo had tried it, last night. It was one of the few good things that Fielding had told them. He trotted after his partner to check out the SUV, backing her up.

The produce store was also where McGee was getting coffee from, Dennis the fellow computer menace emerging behind the NCIS agent carrying his half of the cups. DiNozzo's mouth watered at the thought of that coffee, deciding on the spot to grab three for the trip to where ever Mathis wanted to go to first. The petty officer deserved it, after all she'd been through.

McGee spotted them, deduced that at least one part of the case had come to a successful conclusion. "Hey, Tony! I—"

Ziva gestured to DiNozzo. "The license plate. It looks like—"

It happened in slow motion. Two of the carjackers were hiding around the corner of the produce store, waiting for the right moment. They emerged from behind the corner, intent on their quarry, carrying heavy tire irons.

The first one went straight for McGee.

"McGee!" DiNozzo yelled.

Not fast enough. McGee caught just enough of a glimpse to throw up his shoulder to take the blow on his arm instead of his head. Coffee went flying into the air.

The steaming hot coffee caught the carjacker in the face. He screamed, and clawed at the sudden scalding, but he never dropped the tire iron in his hand. He attacked again.

McGee was ready, and proved that he really was a trained NCIS agent. Another block, a return blow to the rib cage. The carjacker staggered back.

Dennis was the surprise. After diverting the first attack, he dropped to the ground and swept the other carjacker's legs out from underneath him. From across the street, running to help, DiNozzo was impressed. Dennis had clearly had some training somewhere, and it wasn't in this little town.

The carjackers knew when they'd had enough. DiNozzo heard the roar of a car engine behind him. He turned, gun in hand, to see the silver SUV tear out of its parking space. _The third guy must have been hiding in the driver's seat._

The SUV slammed into a skidding turn, twisted into position, and raced toward the altercation. Ziva dove out of the way, just in time to keep from being run down. She fired a shot; it missed by a hair.

DiNozzo too fired, aiming for the tires. _Hit!_ The tire blew, and the SUV slung around before righting itself, rocking back and forth. It blocked the sight of McGee and Dennis. DiNozzo and Ziva ran forward, racing to close the distance.

The driver of the SUV scuttled out through the passenger's door, away from DiNozzo and Ziva. DiNozzo heard a scream, a female one, and his gut clenched. The woman and her kid! A sudden burst of engine noise confirmed his worst fear: the driver had just taken control of the mini-van, using it as a getaway vehicle.

What the hell was going on? He needed to see past the SUV. DiNozzo altered his direction to move past the now dead enemy SUV.

 _Wham!_ The mini-van banged into the SUV, causing the SUV to roll over. DiNozzo dashed back, trying to avoid getting pinned, he could get around it, just a little bit faster—

 _Bam!_ The SUV caught him against the hip, throwing him to the ground. Fireworks flared in sudden agony, daring him to try to move, to escape. "Ziva!" he yelled.

"Tony!" The Mossad agent changed direction, heading toward him.

DiNozzo waved her off. "Get them!" he yelled, hoping that his order sounded like a senior NCIS agent and not a scared Starksville chief of police. That would be too embarrassing…

Ziva understood. She changed direction yet again, darting for the sedan, grabbing the keys in mid-air that DiNozzo tossed at her from his spot pinned to the pavement. Mathis jumped out of her way and out of the rental sedan, correctly figuring that an unarmed petty officer wouldn't be of any use. Ziva took off after the mini-van, DiNozzo listening to the screams of the mother inside and the wails of the toddler as an accompaniment.

"Tony!" McGee appeared from around the front of the SUV. "Tony!" He swiftly turned back. "Dennis, help me get this off of him!"

"Right here."

"McGee, get after them!" DiNozzo gasped. "Help Ziva!"

"Gibbs is on it." McGee went calm. "Don't try to move."

 _Like I could._ Out of the corner of his eye, DiNozzo saw Gibbs come flying out of the 'government building', legs pumping. Fielding and the older guy were right after him, neither one keeping up with the NCIS team leader. Gibbs dove through the window into the back seat of the sedan, Ziva using the door toggles to open the window for him before wrenching the car around to take off in pursuit of the mini-van.

"Stay still, Tony," McGee ordered. He raised his voice. "Fielding! Figgerworth! Over here, now!"

 _Didn't know you could be so forceful, McGee. I may have to up the percentage of practical jokes I aim at you._ "Watch it, Probie!" It was either that, or groan. DiNozzo elected to curse, instead. "Dammit, McGee, that's my leg!"

"I know it is, Tony." _I hate it when McGee tries to sound soothing._ "Let's roll this SUV back onto its wheels. On the count of three: one, two—"

'Three' got lost in the grunting of the four men, hauling at the SUV until it was back on four wheels. The SUV rocked back and forth on shock absorbers, settling onto the ground. The front window showed a wide star of cracked glass and a hole where Ziva's bullet had gone through. Jasper stared inside. "No blood. She missed."

"She's…gonna be…pissed," DiNozzo groaned, clutching at his leg.

McGee dropped to the ground beside him. "Are you okay, Tony?"

"Yes, McGee, I'm just peachy," DiNozzo growled. Growling sounded so much better than a whimper and a groan. "Boston Marathon's next week, right?"

"Help him up," McGee directed. "We ought to get it x-rayed." He stared off down the street. "Let's get him inside," he decided. "Where's the nearest medical facility?"

"Sixty miles away, Agent McGee."

DiNozzo felt like cursing again. Sixty miles away to the nearest medical facility meant sixty miles away from the nearest pain-killers. He made another decision. "It can wait. McGee, get on the horn. See where Gibbs and Ziva are. Get after them. Those bozos have hostages; a woman and her kid."

"Norma Jean and her little 'un." Fielding just realized that it wasn't only the mini-van that the carjackers had taken, and paled. "Jimmy-Bob's gonna go postal when he hears about this!"

* * *

Gibbs scrambled to right himself in the hurtling sedan, taking note of the small verbalizations that the Mossad officer was uttering, certain that those words wouldn't appear in any reputable language textbook. The car took a sharp right, and Gibbs fell over again, grabbing onto the headrest of the front passenger's side in order to pull himself upright. _Ought to be wearing a seatbelt,_ he thought as Ziva tried to throw him back to the floor of the car again with another sharp turn. _It'll be a toss up as to who will kill me first—the carjackers with a couple of automatics or Ziva's driving._

"We gaining on them!" Ziva called out.

 _Good. I'd hate to be going through all of this for nothing._ "They're going to roll that damn thing," Gibbs shouted back. "Push 'em hard enough, they'll roll and we'll get 'em."

"They have hostages, Gibbs," Ziva told him. She kept her eyes on the target vehicle ahead.

"Hostages? When did they get those?"

"The driver of the van and her child. They are still in the van."

Gibbs swore. "Ease up, Ziva. I'll call for some road blocks, from the state troopers. We'll get 'em that way."

"Gibbs, watch out!" Ziva shrieked. She hauled on the wheel, stomping on the brakes. The sedan slewed around, slamming into a large oak on the side of the road and slamming Gibbs into a combination of the back of the front seats and the ceiling. His head whacked against the dome light, and he saw light. Not light from the dome light. This light was entirely self-generated. Once again, seat belts would have been useful.

Ziva had done the right thing. In the nano-second before disaster struck, Gibbs saw what Ziva had seen: the carjackers had flung open the rear window and tossed out the mother and child, the toddler still in its car seat. The two had landed in the middle of the road. If Ziva hadn't reacted as quickly as she did, there would be two flattened and dead hostages to explain.

There still might be a board of inquiry. Mom wasn't moving. The kid, fortunately, was squalling loudly and in terror, arms waving, trapped in the contrivance that had probably saved her life—yes, it was a her. Even these days, not too many mothers dressed their sons in that particular shade of pink.

Gibbs tried to jump out of the sedan—tried, and failed. The back door wouldn't open. He tried to ram his shoulder into it, to force it open—and roared as loudly as the fleeing mini-van as a shaft of fire pierced through the shoulder bone. _Damn. Better not be broken._ "Ziva!"

 _Damn._

Gibbs crawled to the other side of the sedan, desperately hoping that it would open. He did not look forward to calling for help from this particular set of locals.

* * *

They were a sorry-looking bunch, Gibbs decided bitterly.

Ziva: concussion, and a temper to go along with it.

McGee: a black eye. Probably the luckiest of the bunch.

DiNozzo: sub-dermal hematoma where the SUV had rolled onto his hip. Gibbs called it a bruise with an attitude. The docs gave DiNozzo a set of crutches and told him to stay off of it for a few days.

Gibbs himself boasted a sling for a wrenched shoulder. Fortunately it was his left, so he could still whack whichever agent needed whacking with his right.

They were still lucky. The toddler that Ziva had missed had been shaken up but given a clean bill of health. Her mother wasn't so lucky with a broken arm and a couple of broken ribs but Gibbs still considered that fortunate. The pair could have been dead.

Not one of the four suggested that the team put their tail between their collective legs and go home. Not one of them dared complain that ibuprofen wasn't enough to cause the various aches and pains to be bearable, because the heavy duty stuff prescribed by the emergency room nurse practitioner sixty miles away was going to be used only prior to sleep and not earlier since it would have the tendency to interfere with clear thought processes. That would have been an easy way to cause Gibbs's own temper to explode, and take some undeserving agents with it.

Gibbs was pissed. There was no doubt about it. All three agents could see it in every aching line of their boss's body. They had put the initial case to bed—Ducky had done that, actually, by ruling it a death due to natural causes—but this new problem refused to lie down and go away. Instead, it reared up and whacked them 'upside the head' as harshly as anything Gibbs had ever doled out.

At least now they had more to work with.

"McGee." No doubt about it: it was a snarl.

"Boss." McGee tried to look alert.

"Trace the license plate to that SUV. I want to know who it belongs to."

"On it." McGee debated whether or not he should bring up how long it would take without a direct NCIS-approved connection, and chose not to. There were some things better left unsaid, such as, 'which SUV, boss?'.

"I'll help," Dennis chirped from his seat in the corner. Chief Fielding beamed at him. Cooperation with the visiting talent. Lovely.

Gibbs glowered. "Just don't get in his way."

"Not a problem, boss." McGee wasn't about to turn down a free pair of hands to do the gopher work.

"DiNozzo. David. We're going over the SUV. I want every stray hair and skin cell bagged and tagged to go to Abby."

"Right, boss." Neither DiNozzo nor Ziva dared point out that working in the dark of night would make the task three times harder. Eight o'clock in the evening was when they had returned from medical services after cleaning up from the attack, and eight o'clock was when they could get back to working on the case, and eight o'clock was when they were going to do it.

Gibbs understood the difficulties of the task he had set. "Chief, you got any strobes you can spare?"

"Two. We borrow 'em from the kids' football stadium." As if Fielding wasn't that far removed from his own high school football days.

"We're gonna borrow 'em," Gibbs verified. "Set up a big pot of coffee, chief. It's gonna be a long night."

* * *

"Your boss didn't seem as though he'd approve of this," Dennis commented, looking over McGee's shoulder.

"Gibbs doesn't have much understanding about technological systems," McGee replied, "and what I'm doing really will be faster than trying to link my laptop into the landline. There isn't enough signal up here in these mountains to try to pull it through WiFi, and to negotiate the protocols to access the national DMV database would take far too long. No, the most sensible plan is to get your own system up and running, because as a local police department you already are entitled to access to that database. You've just never taken advantage of it before." Which wasn't strictly accurate, but McGee had another plan. By having two computers ready for use—and McGee could see that this was going to turn into one of _those_ cases—he could put Dennis to work on one while McGee used his own laptop. Twice the computer power, twice the speed—or so he hoped.

"We're going to be able to look up every license plate we see?"

"And partials," McGee confirmed. "We find it very valuable in our line of work. I don't think you will, but this will open up other databases that will help you to be more effective. Missing persons, for example. Someone new comes into town, and you can run their likeness through the Missing Persons d-base, find out if they're wanted in any other state. Think that might be useful?"

"Absolutely," Dennis agreed, putting his hand on McGee's shoulder—and very close to Tim's neck.

McGee tried not to shudder, and leaned forward to dislodge the overly familiar hand. "There," he said, turning around in order to remove the hand entirely. Facing Dennis would do that, and put the man at a safe distance. "Now all we have to do is wait for the answer." He watched the screen on the new computer desktop system that he'd finished setting up, sending Dennis for various parts and the occasional flashlight so that McGee could peer inside the box and make certain of what he had his hands on. The wiring McGee had always found tedious, so he delegated much of that to Dennis who apparently loved it. The configuring was McGee's baby, and he was pleased to find that he'd actually improved the speed of the low end computer with his tinkering.

The screen flashed through the DMV records, searching for a match to the SUV that was set up under the lights outside. McGee leaned back in his chair, feeling rather than seeing Dennis do the same in the chair several feet behind him, watching the computer screen over McGee's shoulder. Three people were crawling around the suspects' SUV, and McGee was well satisfied not to be one of them. This chair that he was sitting in wasn't the most comfortable, but it was a chair and it meant that McGee didn't have to crawl on aching hands and knees with the rest of them, listening to Gibbs grumble. That was good enough.

He recalled the stray data-stick that he'd found earlier today, _much_ earlier as he recalled. He eyed the flashing computer screen as it searched the large database, and decided that it was time to put his own laptop to use. He couldn't access the internet at the moment—the signal wasn't strong enough, and McGee didn't want to try chancing a second dial-up connection—but using the time to figure out what was on the data-stick was a good idea.

It took more than a moment or two for the laptop to finish loading itself, and that was more than enough time for Dennis to inch himself closer to McGee yet again. McGee could feel the man's hot breath on his neck. He decided to do something about it. "Dennis," he asked, "let me give you a few bucks. Can you get us some coffee? I have a feeling that this is going to take a while. Get enough for everyone, all the guys outside. Just save a cup for me, when you get back. This is going to take a while," he repeated. In fact, McGee hoped that the new system would have completed its task by the time Dennis returned, but even if it didn't he'd still have distracted Dennis and gotten him out of his hair for a few minutes. If he was lucky, Dennis would stay to watch the fun at the SUV and take more time.

"Sure. Not a problem, Tim. I'll be right back."

"Take your time," McGee called after him, stuffing the data-stick into a spare USB port of the laptop.

In mere moments McGee was lost among the electrons. There was only one file listed on the stick, and it was protected by some sort of pass code. McGee grinned; better and better. He didn't get enough chances to do this sort of thing since he'd graduated from MIT. Gibbs mostly had him doing various searches for data and the occasional hacking into a fellow department's d-base which, while challenging in its own right, still left McGee not using some very high tech skills that he'd learned.

 _Big_ file. Had to have some sort of graphics associated with it; that was the only sort of file that would be this big on a stick. Well, maybe there could simply be a really large amount of data, but somehow McGee didn't think so. It _acted_ like a graphic, which wasn't realistic because data was data—completely inanimate and soulless—and that was what the world thought but McGee and his fellow IT geeks knew better. Data was alive, and ornery, and it acted exactly as if it had a mind of its own.

The file opened up. McGee didn't know whether to be pleased with his own cleverness or disappointed that the pass code hadn't been more of a challenge—until he saw the contents of the file.

It started out with a head shot of a man wearing a turban. As the picture downloaded onto the screen, McGee saw brown and piercing eyes followed by an aquiline nose and a thin-lipped mouth. There was a scar along one cheek, noticeable only in a three-quarters view that this picture was and obvious where it interfered with the graying beard that cascaded down beneath the bottom of the portrait. Underneath the picture was a string of what McGee strongly suspected was Arabic.

He stared at the picture, trying to think of who it might be. It wasn't bin Laden, and it wasn't any of the other Middle Eastern terrorists on NCIS watch lists, of that he was certain. Who could it be? And, in an equally as puzzling question, how did this data-stick get into his things? Because Timothy McGee was certain that this stick wasn't his.

He sat back in his chair, flabbergasted. The motive for the carjackers was suddenly clear: they had known that the data-stick was headed south with McGee's laptop from the Philadelphia seminar, and had followed. It was why they'd tried to grab the rental sedan, hoping that McGee's laptop was inside. They'd probably been hoping to find it in McGee's pocket when they'd ambushed Dennis and he outside of the produce shop getting coffee earlier today.

McGee looked again at the Arabic writing, wondering what it said. Ziva would know; she was fluent in Arabic, and if it happened not to be Arabic, she'd know that, too. At any rate, this was an important step forward in the fight against terrorism, and Gibbs needed to know about it sooner rather than later. McGee picked up his cell, hoping that the signal would get through to the parking lot outside where the other three were still processing the abandoned SUV.

The desk-top pinged: the license plate to the SUV had come through.

No doubt about it. McGee needed to talk to Gibbs.

* * *

Gibbs eased back on his haunches, trying to stretch weary and sore muscles, pulling his arm out of its sling in order to stretch those muscles as well. It had been a long day, and it wasn't quite finished.

 _Hell of a day._ The sole good thing about it, he mused as he watched his people continue to struggle to complete their tasks, was that they'd cleared Petty Officer Mathis and sent her on her way. Other than that, the whole twenty-four hours was pretty much a bust. A 'bust' in more ways than one, his aching shoulder reminded him. He should tell his people to stop working, to get a good night's rest, finish up in the morning—but he couldn't. One look at the sky told him that. Clouds were rolling in with a vengeance, and a thunderstorm would be happening before sun up. The rain would wash away any remaining clues as to why those carjackers were so intent on pestering this little town and its 'tourists'.

If this were D.C., he'd have this vehicle towed to the Forensics' garage, and they could strip it down at their leisure. No such luck here in Starksville; the best that they'd be able to do would be to cover the thing over with tarps and tie-downs, and at the first drops of rain that was what Gibbs intended to do.

What were those carjackers after? It didn't make sense. They had been through the rental sedan: nothing. Were they after Ziva, as terrorists after a Mossad officer? Possible, but unlikely. There were easier targets, with higher publicity value. Was there someone hiding in Starksville that they wanted to eliminate? That had a higher probability, and Gibbs resolved to explore the matter. In the meantime, there was the SUV that the car-jackers had left behind, and NCIS was going to search it until it yielded up some sort of hint as to what the hell was going on.

Maybe not tonight. He ought to tell them to stop. Gibbs himself was too tired to think straight, and he'd blow past a clue even if it was sending up fireworks. His people were the same: tired and sore and more than ready for some of those prescription pain-killers in little vials with their names on them. They were good agents—not that he'd ever tell them that. Swelled heads also got in the way of clear thinking.

Gibbs watched one of the locals—Dennis, his name was—amble out of the produce shop with a large container of java and several cups. Gibbs grinned, instantly recognizing the ploy. Gibbs hadn't missed the interplay of emotions on the part of the local cop, and hadn't missed any of the cues that the man had been sending out toward McGee. McGee, the softy, hadn't yet been able to tell Dennis to lay off. This was just McGee's way of getting Dennis out of his hair, sucking up to Gibbs himself with a hot cup of joe, and making Dennis feel useful.

Gibbs looked up at the sky once more. The clouds had covered over the stars and the sky was pitch black. If it weren't for the stadium lights that Fielding had dragged in, they wouldn't have been able to work at all. Flashlights could only go just so far. He inhaled, tasting the air. Yeah, it wouldn't be much more than an hour, and the rain would hit. He could already hear the thunder crashing up in the mountains to the west, and it promised to be a big one. He sighed; so much for getting out of town before the weather. He reached for the cup of steaming hot liquid that Dennis gave him. "Thanks."

DiNozzo crawled out from the stowage end of the SUV, accepting his own cup gratefully. "Thanks. What do I owe you?"

"Not a thing," Dennis assured him. "I got it covered."

Gibbs didn't raise his eyebrows, wondering if he'd read the situation wrong, if McGee hadn't been behind the coffee run. Gibbs would see how this played out.

DiNozzo inhaled his first swig gratefully, resting his weight on one leg, leaning back against the comforting bulk of the SUV. "I needed this."

Ziva slid out from underneath the undercarriage and spotted what was going on—or, more likely, smelled the heavenly aroma. "Tony, you got coffee and you didn't get me any?"

"No, ma'am," Dennis said, still eyeing how DiNozzo's trousers fit over slim hips. "There's some for you, too." He wrenched his gaze away in order to fill another cup and hand it over, moving on to offer the same to Chief Fielding and Jasper Figgerworth.

A police cruiser rumbled into the main lot, pulling into the slot beside the rental sedan, and the fourth member of the Starksville police force emerged. Her blonde hair swung in a ponytail, the small plastic pseudo-crystal of her hair band glittering in the light from the stadium brights, and the rest of her dark uniform tended to make her stand out with a shadow in bold relief. She walked over to the group, surveying the SUV with distaste. "You getting anywhere?"

Gibbs declined to answer. "You?"

Gloria Standish—the name badge plain on her blouse—shook her head. "I talked to Norma Jean right after surgery. Jimmy-Bob took little Heather home with him, and for a change he didn't cause a ruckus," she added in an aside to Jasper. It was plain to everyone there who was considered the 'chief of police' and it wasn't the one wearing the title. "The docs say that Norma Jean can come home in a day or so. Ms. Hawkins has volunteered to watch Heather during the day while Jimmy-Bob works."

"What did the lady say about the carjackers?" DiNozzo pushed in.

Gloria favored him with a slow look up and down, not missing the various cuts and bruises—or the slim hips that Dennis had also just undressed with his eyes. There was a lot of that going on, Gibbs decided sourly. Yet another reason to finish up this case and get the hell out of Starksville.

"Not much," Gloria finally admitted. "She was pretty out of it from the anesthesia, so I'll head back tomorrow and see if I can get anything more from her. She said she was too scared to really look at them."

Which only made sense. Average people didn't expect to get kidnapped from a parking lot in front of a produce store in the middle of town. Expecting the woman to make detailed mental notes of her assailants was beyond reasonable. It wasn't going to happen.

Gibbs's cell phone rang, and he glanced at the screen: McGee. Gibbs frowned; cell service up here was so poor that he'd almost forgotten that he carried the damn thing and was grateful to have forgotten. Gibbs was amazed that the call went through. Couldn't McGee have gotten up from his comfortable chair and walked outside to talk to Gibbs in person? "Gibbs."

McGee had that note in his voice that said that he thought that he had something really important to share with his team leader. It said that he wasn't completely certain that Gibbs would agree or thought that perhaps Gibbs had already found out the same piece of important information some five minutes previously, but that the item was important enough that McGee had to take the risk. Late data had happened before, and McGee had gotten Gibbs's hand upside the head for it.

Well, Gibbs' hand wasn't long enough to reach inside the police station, even though he could see the lights on in the room where McGee had set up housekeeping with Dennis. "What have you got, McGee? The plates come through?"

"Yes, boss. The SUV was stolen, from a couple in Parkersburg. They reported it yesterday, according to the Parkersburg police report. It was taken from their driveway. I notified the police department there that it was used in a crime, and that Mr. and Mrs. Stackhouse wouldn't be getting it back for another few days."

"And for this you couldn't get up off of your duff and walk out to tell me?"

"No, boss. I mean, yes, boss, I could, but there's something else."

"Spit it out, McGee. It's late and I'm not in the mood for spending any more time out here than I have to."

"Yes, boss. Boss, I found this data-stick in my bag—"

"Cut to the chase, McGee."

Deep breath. Gibbs could practically see it from the junior agent through the window into the police station. "Boss, I've got a picture on my laptop of someone that may be an al-Qaida operative."

"What?" Of all the things he'd expected McGee to say, this was not one of them. Swift piercing thoughts flew through Gibbs' mind. "I take it back, McGee. Start from the beginning. No, never mind; I'm coming inside." He closed up the cell and turned to the others. "McGee's got something. Throw the tarps over the SUV, and let's head in."

"Finally," DiNozzo couldn't help but groan. "McGee, I love you."

Dennis's eyes narrowed.

"What's that?" Ziva's sharp gaze picked out a pair of headlights heading toward them at top speed, directing their attention elsewhere.

Dennis scoffed. "Probably one of the Wilkins kids, from over the county line. They like racing that hopped up Mustang of theirs through town, terrorizing everyone."

"You can't stop 'em?" DiNozzo found that hard to believe.

"They cover over their plates," Fielding explained grimly. "They wear clown wigs, and they get their friends to swear that they were at some party all night. We've asked the state troopers to keep an eye out for them, but they're stretched as thin as we are."

"I keep suggesting that we throw down some tire busters," Gloria said, pointedly looking at Jasper, "but nobody so far has said yes."

"You think you can pick 'em all up before daybreak, missy, so's nobody proper gonna git their own tires blowed out, then you're welcome to try. Just don't expect these old bones to help."

DiNozzo picked up one of the tarps, stifling a groan. "Let's get this over with." _So I can go inside and collapse,_ was the unspoken part. He couldn't do anything about the speeding vehicle, but he could get this part of his job done; the sooner, the better.

The engine grew louder, and a vehicle speeding along became a dark blur in the night. A single light separated itself into two distinct headlights. Gary Fielding scowled.

"That's them," Gloria said scornfully. She cast a grim look at Jasper. "I could shoot out a tire."

"Maybe you could, and maybe you couldn't, missy. Ever think of what might happen if you did? Might maybe roll that Mustang into another car. Maybe into one of us standing here. Not worth a simple traffic bust, little lady."

Ziva continued to watch the oncoming vehicle, pausing in her effort to help DiNozzo with the tarp. "Gibbs, I don't think that's a Mustang. It looks bigger—"

Gibbs saw it, too. "That's not a Mustang," he said, growing alarmed. "That's a mini-van—take cover!" he yelled. "That's the mini-van that got stolen—" He dove behind the SUV, injured shoulder forgotten in his haste, taking the nearest person—Dennis—down with him to cover.

A spray of automatic bullets peppered the ground in front of them.

"It's them!" Ziva screeched, as if they needed the identification. She shot back, her own Beretta puny against their automatics, and dodged back behind the other end of the SUV when it was answered by another hail of bullets.

"Aim for the tires!" Gibbs hollered, suiting action to his own words. He put a single bullet into one of the back tires. The tire _popped_ and the vehicle slewed around.

It didn't stop. Ruining a tire beyond repair wasn't worrying the group in the stolen mini-van one bit. The driver poured on the gas, slowing only as it came between the police station and the group huddled behind the covering SUV. The back window of the mini-van scrolled down. An arm flung something out at them, something small and round—and deadly.

Gibbs recognized it immediately. "Grenade!" He flung himself down onto the ground once more, covering his head, seeing the others do the same out of the corners of his eyes.

 _Bam!_ The world exploded around him. Gibbs felt pieces of shrapnel cascade onto his head and back, feeling the shards burn into the skin on his hands, hoped that his jacket would do enough to protect him. Hoped the others were safe. The silver SUV was a total loss. _Guess what, DiNozzo? No more searching the thing. Good for you._

Had to move fast. Gibbs rolled over, gun in hand, saw bodies on the ground, some of them moving and some not. Another shot at the tires to the mini-van—missed, dammit! His ears buzzed, no sound able to get in past the shock. The mini-van headed toward the police station tacked onto the all-round government building.

 _Bam!_ Another explosion: another grenade. Gibbs didn't hear it—he felt it. The mini-van raced off as fast as it could limp with a wounded tire, heading into the night, its deadly work done.

The noise was another grenade, this one tossed out through the opposite window of the mini-van. This one had been tossed through the window into the police station. This one had been thrown into the room where McGee was working, where he'd just reported finding a computer file with a terrorist on it in living color.

 _This_ grenade had just blown out the police station, with McGee in it.

Flames licked out of the window, consuming everything inside.

* * *

Gibbs leaped to his feet. "McGee!"

All around him bodies were rising, some faster than others. Ziva was one of the fast ones, and she dashed toward the burning building. Jasper, despite his age, was right behind her. DiNozzo had more trouble getting his feet beneath him but he limped doggedly on, crutches forgotten in his haste. Gary Fielding, Dennis and Gloria jumped up and then gawked, waiting to be told what to do.

Gibbs obliged. "Get some fire extinguishers!" he yelled, hoping that others could hear better than he could. "You got a fire department?"

"You're looking at it," Jasper said grimly. "Gary, go git the fire truck. Dennis, go with him. Git the hoses hooked up. Hustle it, boys!"

"Fire extinguishers," Gibbs insisted. His hearing was coming back, and both ears were telling him that there was a bonfire crackling inside the police station. "Where are they?"

"First one's right inside the door. Second one's behind the clerk's desk," Jasper told him. "You can't go in there—"

Ziva was already darting up to the window, trying not to cut herself on broken glass or singe her eyebrows. "Gibbs!" she called out. "I can't see him!"

"He's in there," Gibbs said grimly. "He called me from that room. Look harder, Ziva." Gibbs noted DiNozzo trying to keep up. "DiNozzo! Stay out here. I don't need to be dragging you out, too. Keep the locals under control."

"Throw me one of the extinguishers, boss," DiNozzo insisted. "I'll get it from out here, through the window."

"You're on." Gibbs snatched the first fire extinguisher that he saw from the wall just inside the government building, tossing it to DiNozzo.

The second extinguisher was exactly where Jasper had told him it would be. Gibbs grabbed that one, wrenching the clips out of the decaying wallboard and pulling the pin. It wasn't much, so he'd have to make it last.

Gibbs advanced, shooting the powdery spray at the licks of flame dancing across the reams of paper that scattered in the wake of the grenade. Closer! He had to get closer! He had a man in there, and _dammit_ losing him was not going to happen!

There: that door. That was the one that led to the police station proper. It was hanging crazily on its hinges, fire crackling behind it. "McGee!" Gibbs yelled. "McGee!" He kicked the door down, the large plank of wood toppling off and falling onto a bed of flames, sending more fiery papers swirling. "McGee!"

"I can't see him!" It was DiNozzo, yelling in to Gibbs from outside, spraying whatever blaze he could reach through the window. The smoke was thick and black, making vision difficult. "Where is he?"

Gibbs coughed, the smoke setting his lungs aflame. Savagely, he sprayed another small blaze, dousing it but in doing so letting more smoke waft toward the ceiling. He coughed again.

"Gibbs!" Ziva was behind him, another fire extinguisher in her hands.

"Can't see him!" Gibbs coughed. "You?"

"There's his laptop," Ziva called, darting forward to rescue it. She yelped when she touched it. "It's hot. The plastic casing has melted!"

"Leave it," Gibbs ordered. It wasn't going anywhere. It was more important to find McGee. Dammit, the man had just announced that he'd found a picture of someone potentially very high up in al-Qaida, never mind all the money it would cost to replace an NCIS agent. No, all this hunting in this smoke-filled room couldn't possibly be because Gibbs cared about his team. Let them get one whiff of that, and they'd be all over him. No, Gibbs was pissed because McGee had the gall to announce that he'd found something vital to national security and then had the stupidity to be in a room with a live grenade.

Right. _Smoke_ reddened Gibbs' eyes, and nothing else. He used them anyway, trying to peer through the darkness to find his agent.

"McGee!" Ziva moved to the far corner of the room, spraying the flames out to get through. "McGee!"

Water started pouring through the window, sloshing onto the floor in little rivulets, carrying burned and dying papers away toward the hall corridor. More water cascaded in as the group outside got the hang of where the opening was and did a better job of aiming their fire hose. Little of the water got on top of the blaze, but the sheer quantity covered the floor and cut the fire off from its fuel source. Gibbs and Ziva switched their focus to the smaller smolderings higher up on top of the various file cabinets.

The flames were dying, but leaving more smoke with their passing. Gibbs coughed savagely, saw more than heard Ziva cough as well. Where the hell was McGee? Nobody was going to able to breathe in here. If the grenade hadn't gotten him, the smoke would.

Gibbs tried to use his brain; a difficult task with the lack of oxygen. McGee was in this room. He'd called Gibbs from here, wanted Gibbs to see what was on his laptop. McGee's laptop was still here, melting under the heat. Could McGee have gotten out?

No. McGee would never have left the room without his laptop. That just wasn't going to happen, and especially not with one of bin Laden's favorites staring out at them from the screen. No, McGee was in here, and Gibbs was going to find him!

 _Think like McGee,_ Gibbs ordered himself. _A grenade has just crashed through the window. I'm McGee; I look at it. I recognize it. It takes me a moment longer than Ziva or Gibbs, but I recognize it. I don't panic, because that has been trained out of me at Quantico. I start to grab the laptop—I am McGee, after all—and then the grenade goes off. What next?_ If the blast had killed the agent, Gibbs realized, then the body would still be on the floor and Gibbs would have stumbled over it.

No body. The only thing Gibbs was kicking out of his way were pieces of broken chairs, shredded by the grenade blast. There weren't any dismembered arms and legs, any hunks of a cadaver lying on the floor, roasted flesh sizzling on shattered bone. Where the hell was McG—

There. The closet. Sliding doors, both trying to slide off of their tracks. Charred scorch marks on the outside, but the flames hadn't eaten their way through. Close enough for a blasted body to crawl to, in order to hide inside and hope that help would arrive in time.

Had it? Had help arrived before the smoke suffocated the agent inside the closet, as it was threatening to do to the two searchers?

"Ziva!" Gibbs pointed to the closet, and doubled over, coughing. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket—a decent linen cloth, not some stupid little piece of tissue paper, and covered his nose and mouth. It didn't help much, but it was better than nothing. Reminded, Ziva pulled her blouse up over her own mouth, looking like some gigantic turtle.

Gibbs was the first to reach the closet. The wood was hot, and he used his sleeve as a mitt to haul it back. The large slab came completely off of its tracks, falling backward at them. Gibbs jumped out of the way.

Bull's eye.

There, crumpled in the closet, wedged between three boxes of paper on one side and a dead and dusty copier on the other, was Tim McGee. Eyes closed, face blackened with soot, hand fisted beneath his chin; if the circumstances hadn't been so dire, it would have looked sweet.

It wasn't sweet. It was life and death. It was national security. It was the remnants of a scene after a terrorist had tossed a grenade with intent to kill and maim.

Rescue—or recovery? Gibbs couldn't help himself. He reached for the pulse in the neck, whole-heartedly panicking when he couldn't find it. No, there it was, faint but still present, so fast that his seeking fingers could barely feel it.

"Gibbs?"

"He's alive." That was step one. Nothing could proceed without that: _alive_. This wouldn't be one of those 'hunt down the criminals without any clues' sort of case, because their top witness was still alive. They didn't have the picture, not unless McGee could somehow resurrect it on his burned-to-a-crisp laptop, but they had McGee and that was good enough. Gibbs slipped his hands underneath his agent's arms, lifting him bodily out from the closet. McGee was limp, his head lolling back. Ziva grabbed the dangling feet, taking her share of the weight. Together they manhandled him out of the smoke filled room.

Jasper and Gloria met them in the corridor, the locals both wearing heavy fire gear, the SCBA masks covering their faces. "You got 'im?" As if it weren't obvious.

"Let's get him out of here. Handle the fire," Gibbs ordered. "You got oxygen on your rig?"

"Yup. Need a hand?"

"I need that laptop rescued," Gibbs growled, trying not to cough. "Make it a priority."

"You got it."

Taking too long. McGee needed oxygen, the sooner the better. Gibbs didn't need the man's brains to stay smoked; he had better uses for the man and his tech talents. Gibbs halted Ziva. "Go ahead and set up the oxygen," he ordered.

"Gibbs?" Ziva's eyes were huge above her makeshift filter of her blouse.

"Go." Gibbs called upon muscles honed not only in the gym but in certain parts of the world best left to the imagination and hoisted the tall agent over his shoulder. No response from McGee, not that Gibbs had expected one. This position would allow for faster forward movement, with the added benefit that Ziva would have the oxygen mask ready for the smoke victim, and right now what Gibbs really wanted was to see those eyeballs staring up at him from a soot-smudged face saying, 'boss?'.

Damn. McGee was heavier than he looked. Because the man was so often behind a desk, staring into a computer, Gibbs tended to forget that the agent worked out as much as any of them, and that he too had been through a rigorous self-defense course at Quantico. Heavy muscles lived inside that frame. Gibbs fought to keep his feet under him, struggled to hustle it out of the burning building.

Steps. Three steps to ground level. Gibbs reached for the rail to help balance himself, keeping the other hand on his team member. Ziva was already by the fire truck—yeah, the locals had driven it all the way from the fire house one block away—with plastic tubing in her hands that Gibbs presumed was laden with oxygen. DiNozzo was there, too, letting Dennis and Chief Fielding play with the heavy fire hose that was pouring water into the burning room through the broken glass. If the laptop hadn't been destroyed by the fire, Gibbs thought, then it surely would drown in the water. It was a goner.

Gibbs carefully lowered McGee to the ground, DiNozzo grabbing the unconscious man by the shoulders and helping to position him more comfortably against DiNozzo's own chest. DiNozzo himself took advantage of the situation to sit down onto the ground to rest his leg. Ziva pushed in with the oxygen mask, applying it to McGee's face and turning the dials to start the flow.

"McGee?" Gibbs couldn't wait. What would the director say if McGee died and there was no clue as to who that al-Qaida guy was? Worse, what would _Abby_ say to him if she found out that he'd let McGee die out here? Gibbs leaned over to put his mouth next to McGee's ear. "McGee, wake up."

"Huh?" Followed immediately by a spate of coughing. Wheezing came after that.

Ziva pressed the mask to his face when McGee tried to claw it off. "Water," she demanded. "Tim, try to slow your breathing."

"Try…ing…" More coughing, more wheezing.

"Here." DiNozzo shoved a cup of liquid into Ziva's hand. She held it to McGee's lips, preventing him from gulping as he wanted to do.

"Slowly," she instructed him sternly, pulling the cup away and replacing it with the oxygen mask. "Breathe slowly."

McGee coughed again. "My…laptop."

"Gone," Gibbs told him. "The fire got it."

"I—" the words dissolved into another spate of hacking, trying to inhale the precious oxygen.

"Don't try to talk," Ziva scolded him, holding the water to his lips.

McGee sipped gratefully, the liquid soothing his soot-lined throat. "Boss—" More coughing interrupted him. Ziva pulled the water away, afraid that he would spill it.

"Listen to her, McGee," Gibbs told him. "We'll do the talking. You just nod. Got it?"

McGee nodded, letting his head fall back against DiNozzo's chest. "I found this data—"

"Shut up," Gibbs said a little more forcefully. "Didn't you listen to me, McGee?"

"Yes, bos—" McGee clamped his mouth shut, but not before another spasm of coughing seized him.

Gibbs waited impatiently, then tried again. "Don't talk, McGee," he ordered once more. "You found this data stick with your laptop. You never saw it before; you didn't recognize it as belonging to you. That right? Just nod," he directed.

McGee nodded, closing his eyes wearily. Ziva gave him another sip of water.

"You didn't get around to looking at it until just before the grenade hit," Gibbs mused. Another confirmatory nod. "You opened up the files, right?"

"It was encrypted—" _Cough, cough._

"Shut up, McGee. You can give me the details later," Gibbs said. Ziva stopped the coughing with more water, waiting until the man was able to continue. "You opened up the file, and you saw a picture of someone, someone who fit the profiles that we're all not supposed to use: dark-skinned, wearing middle eastern clothing. Right so far?"

Nod. Safe this time; no coughing.

"Now, there had to be something that led you to believe that this was al-Qaida," Gibbs continued. "Let me guess: writing, something captioning the picture, right?"

"I think it was written in Arabic—"

The 'whack upside the head' was barely tough enough to rustle McGee's hair. "I said: don't talk. Listen." Gibbs went on. "You saw Arabic writing, or something similar to it, underneath the picture. You remember any of it?" Carefully calm.

McGee nodded.

Even more calm. "You think you could write it down?"

Another nod, this one not so certain.

"Paper." DiNozzo dug out his omnipresent pad and presented it.

Gibbs took it, holding it in place for McGee to work on. "Write."

It didn't take long. McGee, unfamiliar with the letters, couldn't remember much, only a line, possibly not even that much. "There was more, boss—" more coughing.

"I'll bet. Ziva?" Gibbs handed it over. "You recognize it?"

Ziva studied the paper. "Arabic," she confirmed. She frowned. "McGee, are you certain of what you have written?"

McGee shook his head, protecting his throat: no.

"How about this?" Ziva sketched something underneath his original sentence, something that at first glance looked identical but wasn't. "Could this be what you saw?"

Definite: yes.

Ziva looked back at her boss. "Gibbs, this is important."

"Why am I not surprised?" Gibbs grumbled. "What?"

"Have you heard of Jameel al-Hamid?"

There was a stark sixty seconds of horrified silence.

DiNozzo broke it. "Are you saying that McGoggles here saw a picture of al-Hamid? The Hormuz Hacksaw himself?"

Ziva was dead serious. "Yes, Tony. The man that no one has seen, the mastermind behind half the terrorist cells in Europe, and one of the most wanted men in the world, dead or alive. Preferably dead, so that no one can rescue him."

"No one knows what he looks like," Gibbs muttered, more to himself than anyone else, horrified thoughts whirling in his brain. "At least, no one in Western intelligence. Ziva, are you sure it's him?"

"If you're asking if I'm certain that McGee saw a picture of al-Hamid, then no, I can't be sure. If you're asking if I'm certain of what this sentence in Arabic says, then: yes, I am certain. It speaks of his lineage, that he was born in Tehran and then educated overseas."

"Anything else?"

"It is only one sentence, Gibbs, but it is worded as though written by an educated man."

"Was there more, McGee?" Gibbs demanded. "More sentences? Just nod."

McGee nodded.

"Can you remember any of it?"

This wasn't a nod. It was a shake of the head: no. It was accompanied by a look of utter self-loathing, that the junior agent couldn't retrieve this incredibly important piece of data.

No one told him, 'it's okay, McGee,' just to make the man feel better because they all knew that it wasn't okay. Jameel al-Hamid, the Hormuz Hacksaw, was thought to be personally responsible for the deaths of over sixty intelligence agents throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, and believed to be running an operation that could lay claim to at least one hundred localized attacks and had killed more than a thousand innocents. Almost nothing was known of the man except that he was brilliant—and that he had sworn to bring down Western Civilization.

There were some who believed that the man didn't exist, that it was a distraction perpetrated by a group of several individuals. Upper level intelligence disagreed; there was a certain flair to the attacks that spoke of one man. No one knew what the man looked like, and there was no one who could identify him outside of a loyal group of followers. All the Westerners who had knowingly seen the man were dead.

Except for NCIS Special Agent Timothy McGee.

They broke off the discussion when Dennis approached, a burnt object in his arms. "I'm sorry, Tim," he said, holding it out.

 _Tim?_

McGee was beyond such discriminations. The lips moved, even though the words didn't whisper past the seared flesh of his throat: "My laptop."

DiNozzo too stared at the blackened box, one corner of plastic melted into an M.C. Escher painting wannabe. "How about the data stick? That's where the original data was stored, right?"

"Gone." Dennis pointed to the side of the laptop, indicating a small nub of plastic that had almost vanished. "Fried."

"Roasted," Ziva corrected grimly, "along with our asses if we don't get this information to higher ups."

No one commented on the concept of Ziva correcting someone's English colloquialism; not under these circumstances.

Gibbs put things together. "The murdered man in the Philadelphia hotel—I'm guessing that he had something to do with this, maybe even was the one who put that data stick thing in McGee's bag. He knew that NCIS was conducting a seminar there, and stuck it in McGee's bag as the most convenient and safest place he could find on short notice. I wish we could get hold of the Philadelphia police," he complained. "We need to know more about the man that was murdered."

"I can do that," Dennis piped in. "We can call Philly. They're a big squad; they run patrols all night long. Up here, we just rotate call with a cell phone."

Gibbs wasn't impressed with the dedication of the Starksville police. "And what do you do when cell service doesn't work?"

"Hasn't happened."

"How do you know?" Gibbs asked pointedly. "Cells aren't working at the moment, with the storm rolling in."

"We've been doing okay. Nobody's complained yet."

"I am," Gibbs told him. "How do you expect to get through to Philadelphia right now?"

"The phones—oh." A look of chagrin crossed Dennis's face. "Right. Can't get through on the landlines right now, either. Phones got all burned up." He paused to think. "We could probably walk over to Mary's place, see if she'll let us use her phone. She might still be awake."

Gibbs didn't bother with a reply. There were more important things to be concerned about, more items that he was connecting the dots to in order to form an unpleasant picture. "I think we can safely assume that our friends with the grenades believe that we've found the data stick and that we've looked at it."

"Not necessarily." A cough interrupted McGee's words. "It was…" _cough_ "under a pass code—" _cough_.

"Don't bet on it, McWishful Thinking." DiNozzo shifted the man so that they both could sit up. "I'd say that the grenades are a big hint that they've given up trying to repossess their data stick and will settle for total destruction of _you_."

"Me—?"

"Not just McGee," Gibbs stuck in. "All of us, DiNozzo. They can't be certain that McGee didn't show the picture to the rest of us. Now they're going to try to remove any possible means of getting that picture back to Washington. Step one was to eliminate the laptop and the data stick so that McGee couldn't even email it back. Step two will be to eliminate us." He jerked his thumb up at the sky. "This storm coming in to prevent the cells from working is just a piece of luck for them."

"Probably telling themselves that Allah is smiling upon them," DiNozzo grumbled. "Anybody got any ideas on how we convince 'em otherwise?"

"Let's do it by staying alive, DiNozzo." Gibbs stared out into the night. Smoke was still escaping through the broken window of the police station, even though the flames were extinguished. They could all hear Jasper Figgerworth bellowing instructions to Chief Fielding and Gloria, trying to save what they could of the bombed-out police station. There were three streetlights illuminating the center of 'town' along with the borrowed stadium lights and they showed all too clearly the devastation the grenades had wrought. The silver SUV—a victim of the first grenade—was now simply a blackened hulk of shredded metal and melted plastic, barely recognizable as something that was once road-worthy. A chunk of the fender had been tossed some ten yards away, lying in the street to tear up the tire of anyone so foolish as to try to pass through town. The police station wing of the 'government building' looked worse, with long fingers of sooty scorch marks crawling upward along the brick walls. Gibbs didn't want to think about how much damage had been done inside: this local department still ran on paper, and much of that paper would have been burned in the bonfire. Trying to recreate the case files would be nearly impossible.

 _You did this,_ whispered the guilty thoughts in his brain. _You brought this here. You brought the outside world with all its horror to this sleepy little town and gave it a wake up shove into the New Millennium. Proud of yourself, Gibbs?_

Not true. Gibbs knew that. He'd been ordered here, had cleaned up the mess the locals had made of Petty Officer Johnson and had cleared the name of her best friend. It had been a good day's work, and he could be proud of that. It wasn't his fault that a murder victim in Philadelphia had slipped a data stick into McGee's things before he was caught and killed. It wasn't Gibbs's fault that the terrorists probably tortured that information out of the murder victim so they knew where to look for their missing data stick.

But it _would_ be his fault if any more of these townsfolk got hurt over this. That woman, the one who was taken hostage in her mini-van—his fault. If they'd handled it better—if _Gibbs_ had handled it better—then maybe she wouldn't be in the hospital, her husband looking for help with the daughter.

That would be stopping as of now. Those terrorists were after Gibbs and his people, and Gibbs would be _damned_ if he would let any more of these good people wander in between the combatants.

He looked at his people: battered and bruised, but still not willing to let those terrorists have their way. DiNozzo: limping and hurt, dark smudges on his cheek where the smoke had gotten a little too close, holding his teammate in his arms so that McGee wasn't lying on the ground. Ziva: no one could see the hatred burning in her eyes because the Mossad agent knew how to bury her feelings until it was time to let them spill forth. She had dealt with this type of enemy agent all of her life, and she wouldn't quit now. And McGee: the only intelligence agent alive who knew what the Hacksaw of Hormuz looked like. They needed to get the man back to D.C., back to civilization where they had facial recognition programs and sketch artists to pull the information out of McGee's brain before some two bit terrorist killed him.

They had overstayed their welcome. It was time to leave. Gibbs turned to Dennis. "Go get Jasper."

"I can help—"

"Now." Gibbs spoke quietly. He didn't have to raise his voice. Dennis fled.

Fielding might have been police chief, but Jasper Figgerworth was the one worth talking to. Jasper's whole demeanor had changed in the walk across the street from where the police station lay smoldering. This was no longer a little bit of entertainment in a sleepy little town. This was serious. "Special Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs kept it soft. "We're leaving, Jasper. Spread the word; those terrorists will hear about it sooner rather than later. They're keeping tabs on us."

"They are, at that." Jasper wasn't fooled. "You'd do best to wait until daylight. The storm's less than an hour away, and the roads will flood at the first drop. Me and mine will keep watch."

Good people. "There's no good place to rest here, Jasper," Gibbs told him. "The only defensible place was your police station, and look what happened there. No, we need to get the hell out of Dodge, and take our troubles with us. You've got townsfolk to protect."

Jasper frowned, not liking what he heard but too honest to disagree. "You're heading back to D.C.?"

"Unless you can think of a better place."

"There's only two ways out of Starksville," Jasper said. "Three, if you want to hoof it down the mountain. Wouldn't recommend that."

"Hoping to get back home a little faster than shank's mare."

"You're not going to get out the way you came," Jasper continued. "Mudslide. Happens every now and again. Barney Miller, over the next hill, called in shortly before all this nonsense started up. He's a bit west of here, closer to the storm. Said it took out the road up by him. No getting out along that route."

"And the other way out?"

"It's chancy, with a storm coming over the hill," Jasper admitted. "You got a couple of bridges that are like to flood, along with a good few sections of road lying a bit low. You'd best hurry." He eyed the sedan that the four had arrived in. "You sure you want to try it in that boat?"

"Agency car," Gibbs admitted. "Insurance'll cover it. You're going to have enough trouble with your budget without adding the loss of a vehicle to it."

"What trouble?" Jasper never cracked a smile. "I plan on billing your department, Gibbs. We gave your petty officer room and board for a couple of days."

"Go ahead," DiNozzo invited grimly. "I wish you luck with The Undead. They're tighter than my Aunt Gladys with the books."

Gibbs ignored them. "Let's load up, people. Jasper, I'll ask you to go over the map with me. We'll pull out in fifteen."

* * *

This time Gibbs was driving. Fat drops of water started to fall just as they left town, beating down on the roof of the sedan with first a hesitant then a more definite staccato beat. Gibbs already had the wipers on high, swishing the water away from the windshield, peering through the darkness at the road barely touched by the headlights. DiNozzo could feel the weight of his handgun in his shoulder holster, wondering why he needed the comfort since a handgun would do little to help the sedan move more swiftly along the country roads. Somehow he doubted that shooting at the rain would do anything to change the level of the rapidly rising water in the ditches that lined both sides of the road. They'd already passed through three spots with the water two inches above the pavement and DiNozzo had held his breath, hoping that the two inches wouldn't turn into a two feet when the road took an unseen dip.

Gibbs was getting them through, hunched over the wheel, staring ahead and not talking. The man had tossed down a scalding cup of caffeine prior to setting out, wanting the stimulant to help stay alert in impossible driving conditions. DiNozzo was grateful that Gibbs was driving; his boss had clearly put more than one vehicle through inclement weather, and this was going to be right up there with the worst of them. Plus, with two hands on the wheel, Gibbs wasn't about to whack DiNozzo himself upside the head. DiNozzo focused on the dark trees around them, wondering where the terrorists were hanging out.

It was a good decision that Gibbs had made; DiNozzo approved of his boss's plan. Staying in Starksville would not only make them sitting ducks, but would delay Tony's own return to civilization. DiNozzo could get behind that. He had a date with this really hot chick next weekend…

He tossed a look toward the back seat. Ziva was sitting behind Gibbs, dividing her attention between the dark outside and the other man in the car. McGee hadn't stopped coughing for more than five minutes, hacking up a lung along with all the soot he'd inhaled and sipping at the soothing water bottle that he held in his hand. DiNozzo didn't envy him; pneumonia was a real possibility, and going out in this weather was not what the doctor would have ordered. But staying in Starksville would very likely lead to a hail of bullets which was likely to be lethal in a much quicker fashion. McGee had dragged himself to the car and buckled himself in, doing his best to watch outside for anything suspicious.

"There's a set of headlights behind us, Gibbs," Ziva said suddenly.

DiNozzo jerked, startled. There hadn't been any sound beyond that of the rental sedan's motor for the past fifteen minutes. He craned his neck around to look, seeing a pair of lights bobbing in the distance, frequently hidden by the gentle rolling of the water-sodden road.

"I see it." Gibbs barely looked at the rear view mirror. "Keep an eye on 'em." He slowed the car down again as water sloshed against the tires, easing their way through the newly formed pond.

"They're falling behind," Ziva reported. "They are not moving as swiftly. I estimate that they are roughly half a kilometer away."

"Out of range," DiNozzo translated, turning his attention back to the front of the car, peering ahead. _Out of bullet range,_ he meant.

Gibbs grunted, a noncommittal noise. He drove on, sloshing slowly through yet another puddle masquerading as one of the Great Lakes. DiNozzo couldn't help but look down onto the floor of the sedan, wondering if the car was airtight to prevent the water from seeping in.

So far, so good.

 _Bang!_

The noise seemed to generate in two spots: the first several yards down the road and the second mere inches from DiNozzo's ear. The front windshield shattered, spraying shards of broken glass over Gibbs and DiNozzo, tossing a few remnants into the back seat to land on Ziva and McGee. Someone yelled something incoherent; DiNozzo couldn't figure out who, knew it wasn't himself and dismissed it as less of a priority than figuring out where those shots came from.

Gibbs stomped on the gas, ramming the sedan forward in an attempt to get past the shooters. Another bullet whizzed straight down the middle—an inch to either side, and NCIS would have been looking to hire a new employee.

"Out!" Gibbs yelled, slewing the car around to provide them with more cover. All four barreled out of the car, weapons in hands.

DiNozzo found himself crouched beside the car, the door open as additional protection from anyone coming up along the side. Where the hell were those shooters? DiNozzo peered into the rain-soaked darkness, saw movement, and fired off a shot. Had he hit anything? Couldn't tell.

Gibbs had scrambled out beside him, diving out through the passenger's exit to keep the sedan between him and the shooters. He aimed his gun and squeezed the trigger.

A moment later he grunted. "Damn bugger moved, just as I fired," he grumbled. He looked around, checking to make sure that the other two were also out of the car and safe. They were.

"How many?" DiNozzo asked.

"Hard to tell," was Gibbs's reply. "Too dark." Another shot from Gibbs's gun, and neither Gibbs nor DiNozzo could tell if the bullet hit what it was supposed to. No screech of pain, DiNozzo thought sourly, so probably not.

"I can circle around behind them," Ziva called into the fat droplets that were coming down faster and faster.

"You'd never see them in this mess until you were right on top of them." Gibbs appreciated the offer, but turned it down. No sense in wasting good team members.

"What would you like us to do instead? Wait here to be executed?" It wasn't the most politically correct thing to say to the boss, but Ziva had never been known for her ability to sugar-coat a bad situation.

"Hey, what's that?" McGee pointed down the road, coughing again.

'That' was two headlights, bobbing and swaying among the water-soaked gullies. It was the vehicle that had been tailing them in the distance.

"Reinforcements—" DiNozzo started to say.

He was cut off. The two headlights turned into a monstrous dark SUV, hulking through the stygian night—with a logo on the side. The logo mentioned something about calling 911 for assistance. It mentioned something about the vehicle being owned and operated by the Starksville Police Department.

It looked damn good.

"Whoo-hoo!" Chief Gary Fielding howled, shoving a long-barreled rifle out through the back window of the moving vehicle. He then proceeded to demonstrate how he'd won his current position as chief of police. A quick aim, and there was a shriek from the opposite camp indicating that the bullet had found a home in something other than a tree trunk. The SUV rumbled to a stop several yards away from the NCIS sedan.

Not to be outdone by her boss, Gloria scooted out of the SUV and balanced her own rifle on the fender. _Bam!_ Exit the next terrorist on the list.

The opponents knew when to concede a losing game before they lost any more game pieces. The terrorists melted into the darkness, and DiNozzo heard the rumble of an engine turning over, springing into life to carry them away.

Gibbs slowly rose from behind the sedan. DiNozzo too rose, wondering to himself why his knees always felt about eighty years old after a session like this. Getting shot at really did give him gray hairs, he decided, promising himself to look in the mirror once he got back home. Wonder how much it was going to cost to cover it up? A big tip to his favorite hair stylist, that was for sure.

Gibbs too felt the adrenaline ebbing away; DiNozzo could see it in the way his boss moved. Gibbs carefully replaced the handgun into his shoulder holster, smoothing his jacket over the set, before advancing to where the local police force stood.

Chief Fielding was grinning like a jackass, Gloria behind his shoulder. Even Jasper Figgerworth had a satisfied look about him, and Dennis? The fourth member of the Starksville Police Department had a smitten look about him, and DiNozzo was really hoping that the look was aimed at Probie and not himself.

Gibbs put it out there. "We owe you a big one, Chief." It wasn't certain if the words were addressed to Fielding or Figgerworth, and it didn't matter. "How did you know?"

Jasper did the answering. "It was a pretty big clue when Dennis here stumbled on somebody speakin' something foreign sounding on the radio. Sounded like the sender was fairly close by. Dennis was trying to get some sort of a message out about the mudslide on the other side of the county—our own tech guy, y'see—and one of the frequencies had something that sounded a mite more strange than French. Not about to tell you that it was A-rab, but none of us could understand it. Decided that you all might want to know about it sooner rather than later."

"So you came to tell us with rifles in hand?" DiNozzo couldn't help but ask.

Jasper looked at him in amusement. "Son, around here some of our miscreants are half ton grizzlies. I'd keep a bazooka in the back seat if they'd let me."

Gibbs had half a smile playing around his jaw on that one. "So you always keep high mileage weaponry to hand."

"Pretty near, Special Agent Gibbs." Figgerworth tossed a glance in the direction of the fled terrorists. Then he looked upward; couldn't see anything through the rain-filled night and only got a few large drops of water in his eyes for his trouble but did it anyway. "What say we get out of this mess? Like as not a bigger surge of water is headed this way. That's what the weather boys are predicting. Don't know as how I much believe 'em, but every one time out of ten they're right on the money."

This time Gibbs had to agree with him. "Let's go, children. We've got a long drive ahead of us."

Fielding hefted his rifle, peering down the road. "We'll ride shotgun, at least 'til the county line."

Gibbs nodded. "I'd appreciate that."

The locals might not have much in the way of smarts when it came to murder, but after that little display DiNozzo wasn't about to turn down the offer. He extended a hand to McGee, the other agent still sitting on his backside on the muddy ground, coughing the soot out of his lungs. "C'mon, Probie," he said, pulling the man up to stand wobbling on his feet, "it's time to go home."

"Way past time," McGee agreed, trying to stifle another cough. He gave up, putting his hands on his knees as he tried to inhale enough air to do the job.

DiNozzo didn't wait. He pushed McGee into the back seat of the sedan, wincing as some of the mud flaked off to end up on both the floor and the seat. "Maintenance is going to love cleaning up this mess," he muttered. "Can't take you anywhere, McWheeze."

A cough was his reply.

Gibbs took the wheel once more, easing the sedan back onto the slippery wet road, the locals following behind more securely in their SUV. Rain droplets aimed for the holes in the windshield, creating small puddles on the seats that ran off onto the floorboards.

They were out there. Those terrorists were planning their next move; DiNozzo knew that for a fact. It was what he would have done, if he were in their shoes. McGee had a picture of their fearless and somewhat crazed leader in his noggin, but the terrorists didn't know that. For all they cared, each and every one of the NCIS team could be an expert sketch artist, ready to post hand-signed copies of the Hacksaw of Hormuz up all over the world, effectively ruining the man's low profile hide-outs. Those terrorists were out for blood—NCIS blood.

DiNozzo kept peering out through the window, looking for anything that might signal an impending attack, any dark shadow that looked more like a man than a tree stump. Ziva, he knew, was doing the same thing on the opposite side of the sedan, scanning the tree-lined road, her Beretta ready in her hand. Gibbs was hunched over the wheel, trying to both watch the road for massive impromptu lakes and stray terrorists at the same time. McGee? DiNozzo had to hand it to the junior agent. Probie wasn't giving in to the long sessions of smoke-removal known as coughing. He too kept watch for that flicker of light on metal that could give a split second warning of an attack.

DiNozzo wondered how many of the little slime-worms there were. Three, at least; they'd all seen them in the fiasco in the center of Starksville when they'd taken that woman and her kid hostage. More, DiNozzo thought sourly, dismissing a shadow up ahead as too skinny to be a man. DiNozzo himself had counted four spots where shots were coming from in this last little skirmish. There could be more and probably was. It wasn't hard to cross the border to get into America, despite what some people liked to say. DiNozzo had done it himself a few times as a ten year old vacationing in—well, better not mention the southwestern state. He might want to retire there some day—if he lived through this little slice of life. Likewise, there was proof to be had that walking in through Customs with a fake ID tended to work fairly well, depending on the quality of the false documents.

Gibbs slowed to a stop. Not a panicked, 'here they come' sort of stop, just a gentle slowing of the tires. Another drop of rain oozed its way inside and landed on DiNozzo's already soaked knee.

"Gibbs?" Ziva leaned forward, trying to spot the reason for the pause in their trip.

Gibbs grunted. "I want to look at that bridge before we try to cross it." He sounded as though he'd traveled this sort of route before, knew the problems to anticipate. DiNozzo inwardly cheered, although he wasn't surprised. It was a Gibbs sort of thing to expect, that he would miraculously know what natural wonders lay up ahead. Gibbs peered through the rain-filled darkness, then turned to his team. "DiNozzo, you're with me. Ziva, don't let anyone get to McGee."

"Yes, Gibbs." Ziva turned to their resident computer geek, and poked him in the ribs. "Wake up, McGee."

"I'm awake!" McGee sat up suddenly, stretching his eyes wide. Then he bent over, coughing once again, until he could silence himself with another sip from his bottled water.

DiNozzo faced forward. Best to keep McGee in the car, out of the rain and away from anything resembling pneumonia. He could just hear ol' Rasputin from one of the other teams, jabbing DiNozzo in the ribs and jeering, "got him home safe, DiNozzo, only to have him die from pneumonia before he could pass on the intel. Way to go, DiNozzo." Yeah, Rasputin—the agent who could charm his superiors into anything—wouldn't let him forget something like that. DiNozzo resolved not to let that happen, nor to let anything happen to the rest of his teammates.

Dennis pulled the SUV up behind the sedan, and Figgerworth stuck his head out through the window. "Everything okay, Agent Gibbs?"

"Gonna take a look at the bridge," Gibbs called back. "Ever have it flood out?"

"Only 'bout once or twice a year." Figgerworth craned his neck to look up at the black sky; why, DiNozzo couldn't tell since not only could they not see anything due to the dark but the rain clouds were covering everything so that even a bolt of lightning couldn't get through.

DiNozzo pushed his collar up, hoping to keep some of rain on the outside of his clothes, and realized that the steady downpour was lightening. It was now downgraded to a steady, sodden drizzle, cold and energy-sapping, but not the flesh-eating soaked-to-the-bone pelting from earlier. He followed Gibbs and Figgerworth to the edge of the bridge, limping, Chief Fielding trailing behind.

Gibbs let out a snort of disgust. DiNozzo leaned over to see why.

The river wasn't big by Potomac standards but DiNozzo would have hated to end up in it. The rain that had fallen on top of the local mountain peaks had decided that sinking into highland ground was too good for it, and instead had joined this little creek to turn it into a raging flood complete with white rapids. Those little dark spots must be boulders incompletely submerged by the water, DiNozzo realized. Definitely a level ten on a toughness scale for white water rafting sportsmen—maybe an eleven.

That wasn't the problem. The problem was the bridge—or rather, the large and gaping hole in the center of it. A surge of water had apparently, sometime in the recent past, come by and chosen to remove the center section of the bridge and add it to the rock collection that the creek was building somewhere downstream.

Gibbs kept his voice even. "You got another way out of this town of yours, Chief?" It was actually directed at Figgerworth.

"Wish I did, Agent Gibbs." Fielding let Figgerworth do the talking. Delegation had its charms, DiNozzo thought. Fielding wasn't the brightest kid he'd met, but he wasn't a fool. Let the elders figure it out.

"And you said the other road was out with a mudslide."

"That's the report." Figgerworth paused just long enough to make sure that Gibbs wasn't going to explode on him. "What's your plan now?"

Lips tightened into an unhappy line. "Not much we can do, until we can dig out around that 'slide." Gibbs himself glared up at the sky, collecting a couple of small raindrops on his nose for his trouble. "Can't even call for a chopper to airlift out. Not yet. Not until this weather passes."

"What are you going to do until then?" Fielding wanted to know. "They're shooting at you, for Pete's sake!" _With us in the middle,_ was the unspoken wail behind it.

Poor kid. DiNozzo almost pitied him. He didn't know Gibbs, didn't know that getting whacked upside the head for asking stupid questions was the best he could expect.

But Gibbs kept it civil for the police chief. "What do you suggest, Chief Fielding?"

 _Was there sarcasm in the title?_ DiNozzo chose not to answer that question. It would only get him into trouble.

"Uh, you could, uh…"

"Right." Gibbs turned to Figgerworth. "They're after us, and they're not going to stop until either they're dead or we are. I don't want any civilians getting in the way and getting themselves shot, so we're going to need some place dry and defensible and away from people. You got any suggestions?"

Figgerworth tried to think. "Most of these places around here, Gibbs, weren't designed to hold off an attack."

"There's the police station," Fielding started to say.

Gibbs rounded on him. "You mean the burned out shell of a building that's left after those people bombed it?"

"Uh…" Fielding collapsed into squashed silence.

"What about the Johnson home?" Gibbs moved on to more appropriate venues for a firefight. "It's away from everyone, and there's no one living there anymore."

"It's got a bunch of entrances and exits," Figgerworth disagreed. "It's got more windows than you can shake a stick at. Not real defensible."

"You got a better suggestion? I'm open."

DiNozzo took a deep breath. He was going to hate himself in the morning for saying this—assuming that he lived that long. "Boss, I can jump the car over the bridge. I think."

"DiNozzo?" Gibbs swung around. "You can get us past this obstacle?"

"Let me take another look, a closer look." _Am I crazy, thinking about doing this?_

Think about Brandi, and our date for this week end. Do I really want to be stuck here in the hind end of nowhere with a hottie like her waiting for me?

"If you think you can do it, DiNozzo, then do it." Gibbs gave his blessing.

 _All on me. All on my shoulders now._ DiNozzo advanced to the edge of the bridge, inspecting the roadway leading up to it. They were all watching him, but DiNozzo suddenly found it more prudent to have his attention elsewhere. _Why the hell did I open my big mouth?_

The bridge wasn't a long one; DiNozzo had jumped a car for further distances during the summer when he'd taken that race car driving course that he'd gotten his old man to spring for, right after young Anthony had gotten his driver's license. He'd thought that he was hot stuff back then, didn't realize until later that his dad was just trying to make sure that the junior DiNozzo could handle a car better than most because there wasn't any way this side of Hades that anyone was going to slow down the hell raiser that Anthony was becoming.

There were problems. DiNozzo had learned to set up a jump, and that included a ramp so that the car would leap into the air instead of arrowing straight across. Gravity worked equally well on all things, and unless he could keep the nose up somehow, he would end up putting the sedan into that cold water below.

So far, the bridge was cooperating. It was one of those bridges that provided a gentle arch over a sweet little creek, oh so picturesque in a charming autumnal setting, perfect for that Kodak moment. The surge of water had taken out the farther end of the bridge, allowing the rise that would help the sedan fly into the air rather than nose down at the ragged tear in the structure.

Hell. That wouldn't get him out of the hole that his big mouth had dug for him.

DiNozzo stepped onto the edge of the bridge, jumping up and down to test the soundness of the damaged pass. It swayed a bit, but not so much that DiNozzo could legitimately refuse the jump. He walked forward, stopping every few feet to make certain that this end of the bridge was still stable enough to bear the weight of a loaded sedan long enough for his purposes.

There it was: dark and forbidding. End of the road—literally. No more pavement until the other stub of bridge stretching out from the other bank. DiNozzo estimated the distance of the hole—no, that wasn't right. If they came down on the nubbin of a bridge, they'd end up in the drink for sure. No, DiNozzo would need to put the sedan down on the other side of the bridge, on the secure ground, because the other end of the damaged bridge wouldn't take a couple tons of car and people landing on top of it. DiNozzo revised his estimate of the needed distance, and unhappily decided that he could do it.

Maybe.

"DiNozzo?" There was the big question in Gibbs's voice, and his eyes asked the same thing.

"Fifty-fifty chance, boss." Actually, it was sixty-forty, DiNozzo thought, but hedging his bets sounded really good right now. "It's up to you, boss. Do we try it?" _Please say no._

"Good enough." Gibbs jumped on the offer. "Chief, anything we ought to know about on the other side?"

"Not that I can think of," Figgerworth said, Fielding nodding behind him. "No towns 'til you hit Clarksburg. What about your friends with the guns?"

"They have no interest in you," Gibbs reassured him. "Once we're gone, they'll lie low until they can get out. Get that bridge fixed, and they'll be the first ones to cross and get back to the action in D.C." He turned back to his agent. "DiNozzo? You ready?"

DiNozzo tried to keep it light. "Yes, Dad. Can I have the keys?"

Gibbs snorted, but he tossed the sedan keys in DiNozzo's direction. "You boys head on back to town, keep a sharp eye out. As soon as you can, get a message out to the state troopers. I want an escort for the rest of the trip home." He snorted again. "Wouldn't put it past some young cop to try to ticket us for a broken windshield."

* * *

It was still drizzling, and there was no light beyond that from the headlights of the sedan and the SUV. Fielding had driven the SUV up to the bank to position the SUV headlights onto the other side; not that DiNozzo really wanted to see it, but he figured that he'd better.

"Buckle in," he said, concentrating on the gauges in front of him. Gas: three-quarters of a tank. Speedometer: currently zero, but that would change. "This is going to be a rough landing." He waited until all three of the others had carefully tightened their seat belts, blessing the regs that demanded that shoulder harnesses also be routinely installed in vehicles. It would have been nice to have an intact windshield to keep the rain and wind out of his face, but that little nicety had vanished with the first bullet from their attackers.

First, in reverse. DiNozzo wanted the extra boost that a few more yards of distance would give him. The SUV hovered off to the side, illuminating the jump scene, with all of the locals standing out in the fine mist in order to more closely watch DiNozzo put NCIS in the drink. _You can do this, Tony,_ he chanted to himself. _Enough speed, just enough to send this clunky sedan through the air and onto the other bank._

"You can do this, Tony," Ziva encouraged him from her place in the back seat.

Had he spoken out loud? Or had the Mossad agent turned into a mind-reader? Gibbs positioned his hand against the front dash in preparation.

 _Now or never._ DiNozzo fed gas slowly to the engine, feeling the powerful V-8 turn over. The wheels tried to slip in the mud, then grabbed hold and propelled them forward. DiNozzo clenched the steering wheel, trying to keep the sedan on track with sheer willpower alone. Rain hit his hands, trying to get them to slip off the wheel.

Getting closer to lift off. DiNozzo slammed his foot onto the gas pedal and the sedan leaped forward. Closer, closer—the dark waters below churned around sharp boulders.

 _Can I back out right now, in the middle of this whole mess? Wish I could._

Closer— _lift-off!_

The sedan careened into the air, wheels spinning helplessly.

 _That's it, DiNozzo. You've done what you could. You calculated the distance, the speed, you executed everything perfectly. You're now airborne, and there's not another damn thing you can do to alter your trajectory. You gonna come down on the other side? Or you gonna crash into the rocks below? Not afraid of a little water, are you?_

Hell, yes. And that's no longer a 'little' water. It now qualifies as a death trap.

The heavy engine brought the sedan down, nose first, the front wheels scrabbling to find purchase on the far side of the bridge. Back wheels— _yes!_ The tires caused mud to fly into the air, spun there by rotating rubber, then grabbed onto the paved surface below the grime to pull the car further onto the road. DiNozzo slammed onto the brakes to take the gentle curve beyond the shred of bridge that they'd sailed over, allowed the sedan to roll to a stop. He sat there, staring at the dash, hands shaking.

"Not bad, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

The shaking got worse, the adrenaline stealing away to leave him trembling like an aspen leaf. Tony DiNozzo felt beads of sweat rolling down from his hairline. Gads, a compliment! Gibbs never handed out compliments. DiNozzo only wished that he could enjoy it. His hands seemed glued to the steering wheel.

"You think maybe I should take the next leg of this journey?" Gibbs continued.

"Uh…yeah." Did his voice shake, too? DiNozzo hoped that nobody noticed.

"What's that?" McGee asked suddenly.

"Where?"

"Over there, boss!" McGee pointed, and they all then heard the roar of a car engine. Something large and black leaped out of the dark beyond. There wasn't much doubt as to what was happening.

DiNozzo's first thought was _not fair!_ He'd just gotten one of Gibbs's infrequent compliments, and now those bastards had stationed someone _else_ on this side of the creek to make sure that Anthony DiNozzo wouldn't have the opportunity to bask in the glow.

He never had time for his second thought. Another large car—maybe another SUV, but DiNozzo would never have been able to clearly identify the make or model in the wilderness dark—came barreling out of trees. It slammed into the sedan.

Someone screeched, and DiNozzo thought it might have been Ziva. It sounded like her. It didn't matter. The attacking SUV didn't let up. It kept on shoving, pushing them off the road.

Gibbs cracked his gun against his window, firing his gun at their attackers. Through the open air DiNozzo could hear the heavier shots from rifles coming from the other side of the creek from the locals trying to help, even seeing one bullet pierce through metal to bury itself somewhere inside the enemy SUV engine. It didn't matter; the SUV kept on pushing.

The sedan tilted. They were getting pushed into the swollen creek! DiNozzo's own gun was now in his fist, but he couldn't fire for fear of hitting Gibbs who was systematically turning the enemy's windshield into starred shards of glass. Another round of bullets from behind him, in the back seat—that was Ziva. McGee was on the floor. Had the man been hit? Was that damn portrait that he carried inside his brain lost forever? Or had Ziva pushed him there, seeking to protect the intelligence as well as the man?

Didn't matter. "We're going over!" DiNozzo yelled, forcing himself to keep hold of his handgun. He'd need it if he survived the river.

Dammit, he'd made the jump successfully! He didn't deserve this! Was there no justice in this world?

* * *

DiNozzo didn't remember the sedan hitting the water with all the grace of a belly flop, but he did remember the water pouring in through the bullet-ridden windows—it was damn cold! This was the kind of water that people paid good money for, once it was bottled and packaged into pristine little six-packs. They could have it, DiNozzo thought wildly. They could have it all.

Time to get out. The doors opened easily since there was no external pressure to work against, and the car would turn into his coffin if he didn't get out. The water outside was worse. Not only was it cold and wet, but rushing by him at a speed that he would later swear that NASCAR racers would kill to achieve. He stumbled, caught himself against a huge boulder that had already dented the front fender of the sedan, and hauled himself back to the vehicle. He still had three teammates inside, teammates that he didn't particularly relish the thought of delivering eulogies for.

"Move, DiNozzo!" Gibbs had already tried to open his own car door and found it wedged tight. The front air bag was deflated in front of him, looking limp and drooping with the air released. Gibbs, finding that the seat belt lock refused to give way, had pulled out his pocket knife and sliced through the belt itself and was now crawling across the seat toward DiNozzo. "Get the others!"

More trouble there. Ziva had apparently removed her seatbelt much earlier in order to take better aim at their attackers. Worked well then, DiNozzo thought wildly, but the woman had gotten thrown against the hard back windshield during the fall into the raging river. There was a large bruise on her forehead. _Cold water's keeping the swelling down,_ DiNozzo grumbled to himself. _Good for one thing._ McGee was trying to pull himself up from the floor, coughing and spitting out river water that was flooding the vehicle.

DiNozzo yanked on the back car door, had to put his foot against the side to wrench it open. Gibbs freed himself from the front seat, coming around to help.

"They're up there!" he yelled to DiNozzo. No need to say who 'they' were. A bullet, way off target in the dark spray, whizzed past them to continue its journey downstream. "Keep your head down!"

"Got another one," a female voice shrieked in the distance. DiNozzo recognized it as Gloria's. The locals were keeping up with their task, firing back at the terrorists even as the terrorists sought to remove several NCIS agents from the land of the living.

The door to the sedan opened with a metallic protest, and DiNozzo was amazed that the handle hadn't come off in his hands. Ziva flopped out against him,, and DiNozzo had to hurry to catch her. "Ziva!"

"She's out cold." Gibbs reached inside the car, muscling both DiNozzo and Ziva out of his path. "McGee!"

"Here, boss!" McGee extended his hand, accepting the help that Gibbs was offering. "Boss, there's at least four of them—"

"I don't care if there's an entire squadron, McGee. Get moving!"

DiNozzo couldn't see if McGee was following the boss's orders, but he did see something else. "Hold on!" he yelled frantically.

He tightened his grip on the unconscious woman. _This is gonna be a big one…_

* * *

Water.

Cold, wet water.

Water under his feet, over his head, trying to get into his lungs to drown him.

A brief moment of air— _gasp for it_ —then pulled back under by swiftly charging rapids.

* * *

Damn alarm clock didn't go off again, and he was gonna be late, and Gibbs was gonna be pissed. Daylight was swarming around him, telling him that he'd overslept— _again_. DiNozzo groaned, wondering if he had time to take a shower before dashing into the office. If he was lucky, Gibbs would have some sort of meeting and wouldn't notice that Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo was missing in action—

Crap. Not in his bed. Not even at home. No alarm clock, because the sunlight that had awoken him was the sun coming up over the horizon. And a shower was currently the furthest thing from his mind, because he was already soaked to the skin, and that included his torn shirt that was currently hanging from his chest in shreds.

"Damn," he said aloud. "That was my favorite shirt." The sound echoed in the greenery of the forest, the leaves seeming to have taken advantage of the rain last night to add to their vibrant luster. Grimacing, he pulled off the tattered fabric, letting it drop to the ground. In its present condition it was worse than useless. Better to go shirtless for the time being. _Birds around here are going to have high quality Egyptian linen for their nests this year…_

DiNozzo cast around, trying to figure out where he was. 'Downstream' was the best he could do, with not one of his team within eyeball distance. All around him was trees, trees with leaves, trees with pine needles, punctuated by a few boulders, one of which DiNozzo had clearly bounced off of, as his ribs hurt like—DiNozzo decided not to quantify the pain. It would only discourage him. Likewise, he chose not to look at the dark and purpling bruise that was emerging over those ribs. There would be time enough for that later—assuming he could get himself out of this mess.

This wasn't getting him anywhere—literally. DiNozzo decided that he needed to come up with a plan of action. His brains were too soaked to be of much use, but making them function might dry them out. DiNozzo _thought_.

Priority one: get that portrait of the Hacksaw of Hormuz into the appropriate intelligence hands, which meant getting Probie himself into their hands. That meant finding McGeek, preferably in a breathing condition. No, make that definite: breathing. Lifeless would interfere with data retrieval. _Hear that, Probie? Finding you dead will only get one of us whacked upside the head, and I don't have to tell you which one of us it will be._

He hauled himself to his feet and stood there, swaying, refusing to catalog all of his various bumps and bruises. That little exercise could wait.

Which way to go? Upstream, downstream, or even cross country? Downstream, DiNozzo decided. There was a decent chance that he'd join up with one or more of his teammates, thus improving his chances of survival and avoiding that whack upside the head.

* * *

The best part of this was that he'd lost his cell phone. Gibbs allowed himself a moment of grim satisfaction. Since the thing had gotten itself doused with creek water, the likelihood of its ever working again hovered between 'slim' and 'none'. If he lost the damn thing in the creek, the agency couldn't holler at him for needing a replacement, and he wouldn't be put to the trouble of lugging the thing in his back pocket when chances were he'd be needing every ounce of strength toward hauling his team out of this mess. Didn't like to use that ridiculous piece of plastic and tinfoil, anyway. Nuisance, good only for the electronic location of perps—and he used McGee to do that—and DiNozzo when the man wandered off in search of whatever woman had taken his fancy. Couldn't even do any team-hauling right now, because both McGee and DiNozzo were nowhere to be found. Ziva he could trust to show up eventually. The boys would be boys.

Gibbs sighed. He enjoyed being outside in the forest, but he generally preferred to do it when he had a bit more control over the timing and the amenities. He surveyed his handgun sadly, grateful that it had stayed in his hand through the wild ride down the white water rapids but doubting that the bullets would be of any use, wet as they were. He stuffed it back into his holster—another item that had stayed with him during his impromptu bath—and scanned the rising sun.

Downstream. Gibbs made his decision. He had seen one or more bodies being carried off downstream after he'd gotten his own feet under him and crawled out onto the bank. There was always a possibility that someone had been stranded upstream, but Gibbs doubted it. Besides, those idiots shooting at them were upstream and Gibbs wasn't about to bet the farm that they weren't hiking it down after the NCIS quartet with murder in mind. It was what he himself would do if he had their mindset.

He pulled off his shirt, tying the arms around his waist after wringing out as much of the moisture as he could. He was soaked to the skin, and keeping the wet shirt on would only sap heat. Better to let it dry while Gibbs hiked out, then he could put it back on when night fell and brought back cool mountain air. That was assuming that he hadn't gotten them all out of this mess, and Gibbs fully expected to resolve this matter sooner rather than later. Still, there was always a chance that he'd need to spend another night in the open, and Gibbs believed in being prepared.

Step one: re-assemble the team. Step two: get that portrait in McGee's head out of McGee's head and into the hands of the CIA and Interpol. Step three: take out those terrorists. Gibbs didn't particularly appreciate having them on American soil.

Of course, if those steps didn't happen in rank order, Gibbs wouldn't be especially displeased. After all, here in the back woods one took what Nature handed out with good grace or not at all.

* * *

McGee shut his mouth. There were terrorists somewhere around, and calling out to his teammates would be a good way to advertise to the opposite side that there was a sitting duck in the vicinity.

No, better to pretend to be a dead body, a fact that wasn't far from the truth. It was only the water rising under his chin that had awakened Timothy McGee.

The previous few hours were a merciful blur in his memory: getting shot at _again_. Jumping the bridge; McGee was never going to question DiNozzo's driving ability ever _ever_ again. Another memory: getting pushed over the bank and into the river by person or persons unknown. McGee couldn't help the chuckle; bet DiNozzo would be upset over that. All that work, and look who showed up to ruin it…

He recalled shoving Ziva out of the back seat and into Gibbs's arms. The woman had been unconscious; McGee remembered her pulling off her seat belt and leaning over into his lap in order to take aim at their attackers. That had worked well—McGee would swear that he saw at least one body flop limply onto the mud—but had backfired when the attackers' vehicle slammed into their own. Ziva went flying into the back windshield and hit her head. Was she safe? McGee hadn't a clue. There wasn't anyone around that he could see.

He should be able to see someone if they were nearby. The sun was rising, and McGee could see small gnat-sized insects rising from the still eddies of the creek. He could see small to medium-sized fish gulping at those gnats, earning their breakfast before settling down to shelter in the mud to wait out the day. This would be a great fishing spot, he realized, from his vast experience of going out exactly once with his father to 'bond'. It was then that young Timothy realized with startling clarity that for him, at least, 'phishing' was far more enjoyable than 'fishing', and that working with computers in some capacity was going to be his life's work.

Water gurgled around him, creating its own symphony. The white water rapids of last night had given way to a meandering stream of water still making its way downhill surrounded by the wide pond that McGee had found himself in. Tree roots stretched into the water, seeking moisture and affording those fish a multitude of crevices in which to hide from predators. One such predator soared on wide stretched wings above him, casting a swiftly moving shadow. McGee tried to look up, but the sun was in his eyes—and something tugged at his skin. Something tugged at his skin that _hurt_.

McGee looked down. McGee himself was tangled in a covey of roots, with long brown strands dipping ends into the water. The roots provided a canopy of cover as well as arresting any further downstream progress, and unless someone looked _very_ carefully, would not expose him to any of the enemy that McGee was certain was still hunting him.

That was the good news. The bad was that the surge of water that had shoved him here had also encouraged one particularly sharp and jagged piece of wood to pierce through his side. There was an entrance wound near his rib cage, and he could feel with his fingers the exit wound some six inches around closer to his spine, which meant that Timothy McGee was staked neatly as a vampire by this tree root.

There was more good news: he could barely feel it. His wound ought to be hurting but wasn't, and McGee realized that the cold creek water had some benefit after all. Most of him was rapidly becoming more and more numb.

A contest, he decided bitterly. A contest as to which would kill him first: hypothermia from the cold water, infection from the bacteria crawling along the tree root—or the terrorists.

* * *

Ziva allowed her surroundings to come into focus before even attempting to move. Hearing was the first to return: songbirds twittered overhead, with the occasional droning of a honey bee in search of nectar. A squirrel rustled in the leaves above her, dropping a loose twig onto the ground beside her. No doubt it had been aiming for her and missed, she thought triumphantly.

Touch was the next sense: there was cold ground beneath her, and her feet were bobbing in cold water. Cold mountain spring water, she clarified, and that brought back the memories of what had brought her here. She remembered Tony's magnificent jump over the broken bridge, the unexpected additional faction of terrorists on the other side—she scolded herself for not anticipating that situation. Was she getting soft, here in America? Losing her touch? This might be her wake-up call—if she lived through it.

After that, everything was blank. No, wait—she remembered the sedan being hit broadside by the enemy SUV. _Then_ everything went blank.

No help for it. She needed to quickly re-orient herself and come up with a plan. She allowed the scents of her surroundings to add additional information on her whereabouts, smelling the fresh green of growing things, the odor of dark dirt, even the whisper of a rotting tree trunk somewhere further on.

What she didn't hear, feel, or smell, was another body, and that both encouraged and discouraged her. She would need to catch up with her teammates, but staying out of the grasp of the terrorists was equally as important. Ziva took a chance, and slowly opened her eyes.

She was correct; no one was in the vicinity. She drew herself up, running through a short series of stretches to remove the worst of the aches from her impromptu journey downstream, and reviewed her plan.

 _Retrieve McGee_. That was of vital importance. Re-acquiring her teammates would help her in that goal, but getting the picture of the Hacksaw of Hormuz into the hands of international intelligence would be worth any price. Ziva David wasn't about to say what American agencies would do with the information but she knew _exactly_ what the Mossad would do.

Ziva looked around, oriented herself as best as she could. Downstream, she decided. She would look for footprints, and bodies both living and dead, and she would especially look for McGee.

* * *

It was slow going. DiNozzo found it easiest to travel several yards to one side of the creek and avoid the thick bushes and trees that insisted on lining the banks. He found a thicket that already had a healthy bushel of red and yellow berries on it and chose to go hungry; no telling what that bush was. It could just as easily kill him, and DiNozzo could afford to miss a meal.

He also needed to push his way back to the river every so often to scan for missing teammates. If Gibbs or Ziva or McGee had clambered up on the bank, DiNozzo needed to see where those footprints led so that he could follow and catch up. He also needed to check for any floating bodies, not something he really wanted to find but there were a lot of things he didn't like about his job. This was just one more. Delivering the dead body to Ducky's morgue would be another, but he would do it. And then he would promise revenge to those nameless terrorists who had done the deed.

So far there had been no sign of anyone, not any NCIS agents or terrorists. Had he made a mistake, going downstream? Was he the one who had washed the furthest? No way to tell.

DiNozzo chose to keep going. The various aches and bruises were keeping him from making good time, and if he was the frontrunner of the pack then the others would catch up with him eventually and they would all make their way out of the woods and back to civilization.

 _Coffee_. DiNozzo's mouth watered at the mere thought. Not one of Abby's cold and over-sized Caf-Pows, but a Gibbs-sized mug of steaming hot and caffeine-laced black java, fierce enough to burn his taste buds to mere cinders. It would warm his insides, take away the cold of the river that still lingered on his pants while they dried. DiNozzo made the effort to walk through the patches of sunlight that were permitted by the leaves to trickle to the ground, trying to warm his chilled and naked chest. Never mind McGee; DiNozzo himself would be lucky not to get pneumonia if he had to spend another night out here.

 _Crap, what was that?_ DiNozzo came to a sudden halt, hearing but not seeing something up ahead. He stayed frozen, all bodily discomforts forgotten in the need for silence. He listened.

 _Arabic._ He was all but certain of that. Couldn't tell what dialect it was, what version, but the lyric line of the language was unmistakable. There was more than one of them, probably two, talking to each other and looking for something. No, not some _thing_ but some _one_. They crashed through the bushes and jabbered at each other, sounding as exasperated with the situation as DiNozzo himself.

What to do? There was just one DiNozzo and two terrorists, and they probably had guns. Working guns, too; DiNozzo's had taken a ride in the water and was going to need a thorough cleaning and new bullets before it was up to his standards of performance.

He made his decision. He didn't like it, but his other options seemed likely to get him killed and that would interfere with the rest of his long term career goals. He decided to let them go. They were ahead of him and hadn't seen him. He would wait until they were out of earshot, and then follow at a safe distance. If they came across one of DiNozzo's fellows, he could re-evaluate his decision but for the moment he would—

Cold metal poked him in the ribs—the sore ones. DiNozzo froze.

"Don't move," a guttural voice said, a voice with an accent. "We have much to discuss before you die."

* * *

Footprints.

 _Finally_ , Gibbs thought to himself. It seemed likely to him that he had been the first one to haul himself out of the raging waters of last night. Gibbs was under no illusion that he was the world's best tracker but he had a reasonable eye for such things here in the woods and he was motivated. He hadn't seen anything that looked like one of his agents had likewise arrived on shore in any fashion, and he'd waited until daybreak to begin his search. Also, the water last night had been powerful under the onslaught of the thunderstorm and Gibbs rather suspected that he himself was the best swimmer under the circumstances. It was a reasonable supposition and one that he would go on.

So he'd made himself a short breakfast of the blackberries that he'd found in a thicket some fifty yards away and thought longingly of the coffee he'd inhaled just before setting out last night in that ill-fated journey that ended up in the drink. Water from the creek he'd swum was good, but it just didn't have the caffeine kick that he liked. He'd seen some bark that would make a reasonable substitute, but time was lacking and there were a few soggy NCIS agents to be retrieved. Making a fire to brew something hot would have to wait.

Gibbs set out.

* * *

Ziva straightened up with a certain sense of satisfaction. After traveling most of the morning, she had finally discovered signs that one of her compatriots had preceded her and that suggested that she would eventually catch up with him. The size of the footprints made her think of Tony, and the clearly defined shape of a well-made shoe led her further in that direction. If it were Gibbs, the shoe would have been slightly larger with less distinct edges; her team leader preferred to use footwear appropriate to traipsing through trees whenever possible. She strongly doubted that the prints belonged to McGee. The stride was completely wrong for the uber-geek. No, these prints belonged to Tony DiNozzo, who at the moment was unquestionably snarling to himself about the lack of toilet facilities for the morning's ablutions.

How old were the prints? Not very. DiNozzo couldn't be very far ahead of her. Ziva cocked her head, listening for anything that might indicate that he was nearby. DiNozzo was limping, she realized from the unequal length of the prints, and recalled that her teammate only yesterday had ended up pinned underneath a large van.

This was quite an unusual way to return from a seminar. Ziva smiled crookedly to herself. Clearing a petty officer from an unwarranted murder charge, discovering a nest of terrorists, and rounding it off with a picture of the Hacksaw of Hormuz, suitable for framing and shooting on sight; should Ziva ever be permitted to write her autobiography—highly doubtful—then this would make a chapter unto itself.

Wait! There—she heard it. Someone was moving in the brush, somewhere upstream from where she stood. It was someone moving quietly, unaware that he were being heard but still accustomed to moving in the bush.

Terrorists? Possibly, although Ziva tended to doubt it. Such people preferred to live in cities, to be closer to their victims and observe the habits of those they intended to kill. Those activities did not lend themselves to learning how to move among the trees without notice, and the person in front of her was moving with extreme quiet. Still, a mistake at this time could lead to an extraordinarily disastrous outcome, an outcome to which Ziva had no intention of exposing herself. Furthermore, the noises sounded like a singleton, and terrorists preferred to work in groups—unless immediate martyrdom beckoned with explosives strapped to the waist.

No gun. Her Beretta had been lost sometime during the plunge into the cold river. She experienced a moment of regret; that weapon had served her well. It _fit_ her hand. She would miss it.

That was less important at the moment than staying alive. Failure to continue breathing would ensure that she would never have the opportunity to grow attached to another weapon.

What she did have was her knife, a wickedly sharp three inches of finely honed steel. Advantage: Ziva. With this she had the added attraction of silence and surprise. The noises she heard sounded more like a single person, but Ziva preferred to be prepared. Should there be more than one, she could dispatch the first with a well-thrown blade and the second with her hands before he realized what had happened. Any others would have to be satisfied with long and drawn out hand to hand combat which Ziva was determined to win.

Surveillance was the next step. Ziva crouched down in the bushes, listening to the body moving quietly through the brush. Yes, it was a singleton. Once she identified the person approaching, she could either slay them with a single thrust of her knife or take them captive with that same knife offering a too close shave to the throat.

She considered her next move. The person would pass several meters away from her, ideal for an accurately thrown knife. She echo-located him, reaffirming yet again that it was indeed a singleton. There was only one set of footsteps, quiet and precise, the man placing his feet in such a way that there was no excess noise. Ziva frowned; it sounded as though this man too was hunting. A local, stalking some deer or other creature, for food? It was a bit early in the season, if Ziva understood typical American hunting behaviors. Gibbs had led her to believe that deer-hunting season began somewhat later in the year, when the immature specimens had grown to something approaching adulthood.

More investigation was in order. She stepped forward, silence uppermost, heading for the sounds. Visual inspection would be necessary.

"Don't move."

Ziva froze. The voice came from behind her. Her knife was in her hand, ready for use though no match against a handgun. But…

"Gibbs?"

"Ziva?" Tension gone. The pair recognized each other, Ziva turning around to greet her team leader.

Still, they kept their voices down. "Have you seen DiNozzo or McGee?" Gibbs wanted to know.

"No, but I have located a set of footprints that I believe were made by DiNozzo." She jerked her thumb toward the creek. "On the bank of the river."

Gibbs stirred himself to look at what the Mossad officer had found. "I think you're right, Ziva." He peered downstream, not surprised when he couldn't see any movement suggesting that the man was close by. "These tracks look like they're a couple hours old. DiNozzo must have started out, looking for us."

"We'll catch up with him," Ziva predicted confidently. "He will not be moving swiftly."

"Yeah," Gibbs agreed, "but they will."

He pointed to a second set of tracks several yards away.

* * *

"NCIS." The man spat onto the forest floor. "Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS." He showed the picture ID in DiNozzo's wallet to the others. He put his face back into DiNozzo's, letting his morning breath do a fine job of asphyxiating his captive. "You understand that we're going to kill you."

"I know that you're going to try," DiNozzo told him. _Damn, but I'm a good actor, even with my hands tied behind my back. No one would ever guess that inside I'm terrified._ "Since I'm not dead yet, either you still need me for something or you're incompetent. Maybe both."

 _Bam!_ The man back-handed DiNozzo. DiNozzo stumbled back, but the two others who had hold of his arms wouldn't let him fall.

DiNozzo spat blood. "Definitely both," he said pleasantly.

 _Bam!_ Alpha Centauri went nova inside his head.

The questioner moved in. "You found a data stick in your computer equipment. Where is it?"

"Sorry. You must have me confused with some other NCIS agent."

 _Bam!_

 _This was getting tiresome, not to mention painful._ DiNozzo weighed his options: there were very few. Stalling seemed to be the best of the bunch. "Yeah, we found a data stick."

"Where is it?"

DiNozzo gave him a bright smile, as wide as he could make it with a split lip. "Guess I must have left it in my other pants, at the cleaners."

 _Bam!_

Through the stars dancing in front of his eyes, DiNozzo heard one more thing from his questioner: "Soften him up. We'll see how funny he is then."

* * *

McGee tugged at the stick that had pierced his side. It _hurt,_ and he stopped more because the darkness dancing in front of him threatened to cause him to black out than because of the pain. Blacking out: bad. That might cause him to topple over into the water and drown. Blacking out and toppling over might cause this tree root to rip its way out of him and cause him to leak all his life's blood into this damned creek that had already tried to kill him once and now was trying again. A small school of nearly invisible fish, the longest not more than two inches, investigated the human intruder in their domain, nibbling at both entrance and exit wounds. McGee glared. The fish were clearly intrigued by the high quality blood seeping into the water around them: the piscine version of bellying up to the bar.

McGee dashed his hand at them, driving them away, suddenly pulling his hand back when blackness once again threatened. He sighed, shivering, and picked up the rock that he'd been using to try to scrape through the root that had staked him. If he could somehow cut through the root, he could free himself from this spot. He might not get far, but it would be a start.

The sharp edge of the stone was almost gone, and he'd only been able to get through a quarter of the wood. He looked up at the sky, trying to estimate the time by the height of the sun. Gibbs could time it almost to the quarter hour, he thought sourly. Ziva probably could, too. Tony? McGee doubted it, although Tony DiNozzo would learn just so that he could annoy his fellow agent. McGee glanced down at the horizon, trying to gauge the angle between and the sun. Ten o'clock, maybe? Was that Eastern Standard or Daylight Savings Time?

Did it matter? No. Timothy McGee wasn't going anywhere.

* * *

Gibbs led. It didn't take long for the pair to realize that the team leader was more comfortable with tracking their errant team member than Ziva, and she had no problem with allowing Gibbs to lead. Gibbs's eyes seemed to almost magically light upon a broken twig here, the barest outline of a shoe there. Beyond those marks and further away the creek gave up on its pretensions of being a river and the excess water shuffled off downstream, returning the shore to its previously determined parameters.

Neither one dared called out. In addition to the tracks left by DiNozzo, Gibbs found several others that suggested that there was someone else here in the forest. Given what had gone on before, both Gibbs and Ziva wanted a good look at the owners of those footprints before letting anyone else know that more than one NCIS agent remained on this side of the Pearly Gates. That meant caution, and caution meant taking more time.

Even with their slow advance, it didn't take long before Gibbs held up his hand with a silent command: stop. Ziva listened, and heard it, too: a slow and steady current of thuds, suggesting several fists connecting with human flesh. There was the occasional grunt as well, forced out of his lungs whenever the poor slob collecting the beating managed to grab a breath.

Ziva strongly suspected that the poor slob was the NCIS agent whose desk was positioned very closely to hers. She looked to Gibbs for direction.

He gave it to her. Hand signals: circle around and survey. They needed to know how many they were up against, and bursting into camp waving rocks and Ziva's knife was likely to get the wrong people killed. Taking a couple of the enemy by surprise was a much better plan. The pair separated and eased themselves around to observe from the woodland cover.

 _Not good._ There were four men, three of whom were taking turns to see who could do the best job of making chopped liver _a la_ DiNozzo. The NCIS agent's face was barely recognizable under bruises that had already been inflicted, and Ziva winced as one of the men, while DiNozzo was on the ground, landed a kick that she was certain cracked more than one rib. Her anger growing, she forced herself to coldly assess the rest of the scene: trees all around, protecting the attackers from being seen by a casual hitchhiker. She also spotted not only the handgun in the fourth man's hand, but three long-barreled rifles sitting in the corner of the camp, make and model to be determined at a later time. Her fingers tightened on her knife, waiting for Gibbs's signal.

The man with the gun stood up and spoke in Arabic. _"That's enough,"_ he told the other three. _"Let's see if the lesson has loosened his tongue."_

Two of the men grabbed DiNozzo under the arms, hoisting him onto legs that wouldn't support him. DiNozzo hung limply in their grasp; breathing was the extent of his voluntary movement and even that was regretted as the ribs grated against each other.

Gibbs acted. His bullets were wet and useless but Gibbs without a gun was not a powerless man. The baseball-sized rock flew with unerring aim toward the man who was grabbing DiNozzo by the chin, trying to see if the NCIS agent was truly unconscious or merely shamming. The rock did more than connect with the man's skull. It cracked the bone, and the man dropped, blood oozing from the sudden concavity.

That was Ziva's signal. Her knife left her hand, spinning over and over, and buried itself in the most dangerous opponent: the man with the handgun. That handgun could be used against them in these close quarters, and she couldn't allow that. The knife buried itself in the man's back, sliding through the ribs. Blood bubbled out in a wet cough from the man's lips, and he fell forward, the gun slipping from suddenly dead fingers.

Ziva selected her next opponent from the remaining two. Both dropped their victim, and DiNozzo flopped to the earth and sprawled among the dead leaves on the ground. Ziva aimed for the larger of the two, wanting to take out her anger, and was chagrinned to find that Gibbs beat her out. Gibbs grabbed the target by the arm, spun him around, and landed a pile-driver that all but crushed the man's eye.

No time to scold her boss for taking her target. Ziva blocked the blow that the last man aimed at her, glorying in his culture shock that a mere woman would think to oppose him. Palm-strike to the nose, too far off center to kill him, but it rattled his brains nonetheless.

 _"Whore,"_ he hissed at her in Arabic, staggering back. _"Jew bitch! I will rape you and teach you your place among your betters!"_

Ziva laughed at him. _"A eunuch cannot rape anyone,"_ she sneered back at him, pleased at the horror on his face that she understood his words. She blocked the wild punch that he aimed at her face, and returned it with a better-aimed blow. His eyes rolled up in his head, and he toppled over backwards to land beside his previous victim.

Ziva uttered a non-verbal expression of disgust. She had wanted a better fight. This had done little to dispose of her anger. _At least the man could have thrown up his arm in defense of himself,_ she thought.

He hadn't, and it was time to clean up. Ziva forced herself to calm down and move on to the next important issue: her fellow NCIS agent.

Once again Gibbs was ahead of her. "DiNozzo," he scolded, although he kept his voice free from its usual annoyance, "anybody ever tell you not to get caught?" He hooked his hands underneath DiNozzo's arms and dragged him into a more comfortable sitting position against a convenient tree.

DiNozzo coughed, laying his head limply against the boll of the tree. Ziva winced as much as her team mate in sympathy; what was on the outside of that finely-muscled torso was only a fraction of the damage that had been inflicted. He struggled to find the words that he wanted. "Sorry, boss. Wasn't thinking."

"Damn right you weren't," Gibbs grumbled. Ziva wasn't fooled. Gibbs never admitted to caring about his team. It wasn't in their team leader's nature. "Don't expect me to tote you out of here."

"No, boss." Another cough, another wince.

Ziva pulled out a shirt from one of the backpacks that the enemy had carried with them, tearing the cloth into two and wetting it down from the creek. It seemed right; the terrorists had caused the damage, and she could use their supplies to clean up their mess. She gently dabbed at DiNozzo's face, wiping away blood both dried and fresh.

"Ow," he complained. "Be careful."

"I am being careful," she returned. "Does this hurt?"

"Ow! Yes, Ziva, that hurts!"

"Good," she told him unrepentantly. "That means that you are alive and likely to stay that way unless you again do something stupid like get yourself caught by people who want to kill you."

Gibbs hunkered down beside them. "Two dead," he reported, not bothering to keep his voice down. There was no longer any need for quiet. "Going to have to tie up the other two. You see any rope around here, DiNozzo?"

"Little busy at the time, boss." DiNozzo stifled the groan that threatened to emerge as Ziva continued to work.

"Learn to multi-task, DiNozzo. What did these bozos want from you?" Gibbs grabbed some rope that he found next to the camp's supplies and went to work on the two enemy combatants still left alive, making certain that neither one would be able to walk out without a lot of rope cutting from around their wrists and ankles.

DiNozzo forced the answer out through swollen lips. "They wanted the data stick that McGee found."

"So this bunch is connected with the ones across the river in Starksville," Gibbs confirmed. "No surprise there. Any chance that they know for certain that McGee hacked into the damn thing?"

"I don't think so, boss." Another wince. "They seemed to think that we couldn't crack it but were going on the assumption that we all knew the contents, to be on the safe side. They were going to finish me once they found out what they wanted to know."

"They know that the data stick was destroyed in the fire?"

It was hard to produce a smile, but DiNozzo managed a grim parody. "Nope. They think that we still have it."

"Lucky us," Gibbs grunted. "They report in?"

"Yeah. Not good reception, but they got through eventually."

"Figures." Gibbs stood, making command decisions. "That means that more are on the way, looking to kill us." Then a grim smile crossed his face. "That also means that they have a working cell phone. Right?"

"Right, Gibbs." Ziva latched onto the idea and dove into one of the attacker's backpacks, upending it and dumping the contents onto the dirt. The pair of terrorists still alive glared at her. One muttered something vile under his breath; she ignored him. He was no longer of any consequence.

Ziva snatched up the silver-coated device, brandishing it in the air. "Got it. It's even fully charged, Gibbs."

Gibbs nodded in satisfaction. "Give it to DiNozzo." He turned to his other team member. "Get hold of Ducky. Have him get a squadron of Marines out here ASAP; it'll be faster talking to him than trying to go through direct channels on an unsecured line. DiNozzo, can you keep a gun on these geniuses, tied up, until we can get some relief?"

DiNozzo held out his hand for Gibbs to deposit the weapon in it along with the purloined cell phone. It was the sole handgun around, previously owned by the terrorist who now boasted a knife through his ribs. There was a small dollop of blood on it, and DiNozzo wiped his hand on his grimy and torn pants before aiming it loosely at his captors. "I'll manage. You, boss?"

Another grim frown. "Ziva and I are going to go look for McGee."

* * *

Shivering. Cold and shivering and wet and hurting and…McGee gave up trying to categorize how he felt. It wouldn't make any difference. There wasn't anyone around to complain to, and the minnows had already made it clear that they didn't care.

Stay positive. Focus. Look on the bright side. Never give up. Keep a stiff upper lip—McGee got bored with listing all the various clichés that he could think of and went back to scraping at the root that still pinned him in place. He was making progress, McGee decided. If he was lucky, he'd be able to cut through it with this rock sometime in the next three days, assuming he lived that long.

Of course he'd live that long, McGee scolded himself. Under the circumstances, dehydration wasn't about to happen. He was in water up to his waist.

Food was another story. How long could he last without it? Thirty days, was what he'd heard. He didn't want to test it. Test to destruction, that's what it would be. McGee blinked, and almost giggled. His mind was wandering, he realized unhappily. Something was making him dizzy with thoughts worthy of an amoeba, and whatever it was seemed likely to kill him. He hoped it wouldn't take too long. If it was going to kill him, then he'd rather go without the painful part that he was enduring right now.

He sighed. It probably would. Take a long time, he meant. Whenever McGee got what he wanted, there turned out to be a fly in the ointment. Look at this, his dream job; it came with DiNozzo to make his life miserable and now it came with the likelihood of ending his life altogether.

Another long sigh, and he turned back to his task. The stone was almost worn to a nubbin. It would take twice as long to scrape his way through the root in order to separate himself from the mass of tree roots that pinned and imprisoned him.

 _Have at it, McGee,_ he told himself. _Think of it as a problem in C++._ That sort of problem required infinite patience to debug it, going through the code line by line until he found the error and corrected it. Many was the time that he and his fellow geeks at MIT had pulled all-nighters, trying to make whatever program work that had tickled their fancy.

Wouldn't the other grad students be laughing at him now? They were all employed by major software corporations, pulling down salaries at least three times his with benefits that would allow them to retire by age forty to their own tropical island. He could have had that, too. Why hadn't he? What was wrong with him, that he'd chosen to go into this sort of work, luckless and thankless and poorly paid for his expertise?

Well, Timothy McGee would be damned if he was going to let this silly little tree root get the better of him! He repositioned the stone in his hand, ready to attack the offending tree root once more—and lost his footing on the slippery river bed.

He fell.

The tree root tore out of his side, taking a healthy chunk of flesh along with it.

Water crashed over him.

* * *

"What was that?" Ziva perked up her ears.

"This way." Gibbs didn't have an answer, but he wanted to. He would get it.

They picked up their pace, headed for what sounded like a muffled shout. The noise came from downstream accompanied by splashing. There weren't too many people in this section of the world, and chances of this being their missing NCIS agent were increasing exponentially.

They had to hurry. DiNozzo would be getting through the various layers of bureaucracy to get help—Gibbs had instructed him to contact Ducky. The man might only be a medical examiner but Gibbs had been on the receiving end of more than one of Ducky's missions and knew that there was a great deal more to Dr. Mallard than a doddering old man with rambling mis-remembered stories—and before long there would be a squadron of well-armed Marines to provide the needed firepower.

They would need it. DiNozzo had heard the now dead terrorist place a call on the cell phone that DiNozzo was 'borrowing'. DiNozzo didn't speak Arabic or whatever language the man was using but there was little doubt that the man was calling for reinforcements. That the terrorist cell had figured out that NCIS was in possession of the picture of the Hacksaw of Hormuz was likewise a given, and the enemy soldiers knew that NCIS would be disseminating that picture just as soon as they could get it onto the Interpol airwaves.

The terrorists would want to prevent that in any way possible and had already shown a fondness for things that went 'boom'. So it would be a race between the Marines and the terrorists, with NCIS caught in the middle.

Gibbs intended to improve the odds a bit. Finding McGee would help. Finding him in a breathing condition would help even more. Until then, DiNozzo would have to hold out, and there would be a lot of prayers aimed heavenward for the good guys to win.

Gibbs beat Ziva to the bank of the creek by seconds. He stared out over the water, looking for signs of his missing man. Another shout grabbed his attention.

"Help!" yelled the voice. "Help!"

It wasn't McGee. It was a kid, caught in the still swiftly flowing current, battling to try to stay afloat and reach the shore. On the far side another kid, looking to be all of twelve years old, screeched and danced up and down the shore line, trying to figure out a way to rescue his friend.

No time for decisions. Gibbs acted. He dove into the water, trusting in his hands held in front of him to ward off any rocks in shallow water. He used legs made powerful by years of exercise to drive him toward the floundering child, grabbed onto the kid's shirt with hands that had fired many weapons, hauling him into the shallows and out of the water.

"Are you all right?" Gibbs demanded.

The kid just sat there, trembling. The other one dashed over to the pair. "Thanks, mister!" he said fervently. "That water just hooked Joe, and I couldn't keep up."

"Gibbs," Ziva called out in a low and urgent voice. "Over here."

Too many things, and not enough of him. Gibbs made a command decision. "You two okay to get back to your parents?" he asked, stifling his urge to 'whack 'em upside the heads' as his own father used to do. The boy that he'd dragged out of the water seemed to be all right, moving on to feeling annoyed with himself rather than staying scared at the near drowning.

"Yes, mister," the dry one told him. "C'mon, Joe. You need dry clothes."

"Thanks, mister," Joe said, finally able to stop the trembling in his hands. Even his voice didn't wobble. "Thanks." The pair raced off, Joe picking up speed as his clothes dried in the warming sunlight.

"Gibbs," Ziva called again, more insistently. "I've found something."

"Be right there." Gibbs swiftly surveyed the creek, wading across at a shallower and narrower point to rejoin Ziva. It took far too long, he decided unhappily. He needed to find McGee, and taking time away from that was unacceptable. But was should he have done? Let the kid drown? Likewise: unacceptable.

The Mossad agent had found something. She pointed to the rat's nest of tree roots, most of them dipped into the creek water and showing more of themselves than tree roots ought to have with the dirt being slowly washed out from underneath the tree. In another season, Gibbs knew, that tree would topple over in a good stiff breeze. That, however, was not why Ziva had called him over. There was more.

A scrap of white cloth was snagged on one root, the cloth flopping back and forth in the lapping of the creek water. The root was thick but broken at one end. Gibbs felt his blood run cold; there was something more. That something was rusty brown. It was the color of dried blood, high up on the white cloth where the water couldn't reach. It wasn't just the color of dried blood—it _was_ dried blood.

Was it McGee's?

"McGee was wearing a white shirt," Ziva remembered grimly. "This seems to be the same cloth." She fingered it gingerly, pulling the fabric from the tree root.

"The root was broken, right here." Gibbs ran his hand along the root, stopping at the end. "Here it was scraped away. It looks like someone was trying to cut it with a dull knife."

"Or a rock," was Ziva's opinion. "McGee doesn't carry a knife, dull or otherwise."

"So what happened to him? What was he doing here, and why isn't he here now?"

"Did they find him and take him away?"

"Doesn't make sense," Gibbs mused. He tamped down his emotions; this was not the time to allow his feelings to interfere. "If they found him, why not just kill him and leave the body?"

"Perhaps they wanted to interrogate him? They did with DiNozzo."

"Doesn't feel right." Gibbs cast around. They hadn't found the correct answer. Gibbs couldn't say why it wasn't right, but his gut was screaming loud and clear that there was more evidence to be considered.

His gut was correct. "There," Gibbs said, pointing at the bank of the creek. "Whatever happened here, terrorists were not part of it."

"Gibbs?" There was a question in her voice, tempered by hope.

"No footprints," Gibbs explained. "If terrorists had gotten to McGee, they would have approached over land and would have left footprints." He gestured again to the dark dirt that lined the edge of the water. "No footprints."

"Which means that they haven't gotten to McGee." Ziva understood. No footprints meant that other people had not been involved at this site. "But, Gibbs, where is he?"

" _That_ is the sixty-four thousand dollar question."

* * *

The fact that two of his companions were dead and still sprawled on the ground beside him didn't seem to faze the terrorist one bit. The blood leaking from the dead bodies had dried into a dark jelly-like conglomeration that DiNozzo chose not to look at. He'd seen enough of it when tossing crime scenes; he didn't need to subject himself to more. Let someone else have the honors this time. Tony DiNozzo just wanted to crawl into bed with a vial filled with pain-killers for the next twenty four hours and then crawl out to keep his date with Brandi the hottie.

The terrorist wasn't cooperating. He started by tossing smirk-filled glances in DiNozzo's direction, and followed them up with a sneering smile.

Finally he worked himself up to words. "I'd run, if I were you." The accent was distinct.

DiNozzo had been through this before. "Fortunately for both of us, you're not. I'm better looking, for one thing; even with all the damage you did to my face. Smarter, for another." He idly sighted down the barrel of the terrorist's handgun that he was holding, wondering where the perp had obtained it. On the streets somewhere, he suspected. "Bottom of the barrel equipment they're handing you guys, these days." He sighted again, making it look as though he was aiming at the man's knee. "I wouldn't try anything, if I were you. I could aim this thing at your knee cap, and blow a hole through your heart instead. This thing is crap."

"I don't need to try anything. My people are coming for me."

"Yeah. To shoot you. Who's gonna get to you first? Your people will kill you without thinking twice. Mine'll at least keep you alive."

"I die a martyr."

DiNozzo snorted in derision, impressing himself with how good it sounded. "You wish. You're going to die a forgotten man. Nobody will ever hear about you. My people will make certain of that."

The last terrorist, carefully not touching the rapidly swelling black eye where Gibbs had hit him, said something vicious-sounding to the talker in a language that DiNozzo couldn't understand. The chatty terrorist started to object, thought better of it, and then settled down to stay quiet.

Which gave DiNozzo all of three seconds of warning. That was okay: the first second was devoted to a sudden attack of nerves. The next second identified the crack of a twig as something possible deleterious to his long term health, and time unit number three was used up by throwing himself to the side.

The third instant turned out to be the most useful. Fresh bullets peppered the ground where DiNozzo had sat, digging holes into the dark dirt. DiNozzo fired back frantically, just to tell the newcomers to keep their distance. He scrambled backward, toward a bare minimum shelter of rocks pretending to be a shallow cave, broken ribs forgotten in his dash to stay alive.

DiNozzo cursed to himself, watching the two living terrorists skooch themselves across the clearing toward rescue. He started to aim at one—it would be an easy shot—and then thought better of it. How many bullets did he have? Not many, and the box of ammo was located across the empty space of the this grove where the original four had set up camp. How many terrorists were in this cell, coming to the rescue of their fellow idiots? There was the bunch trapped across the river, the four here—two dead and two tied up—and now this bunch. Damn, but this group was better staffed than the NCIS! Anthony DiNozzo was going to have to keep a careful eye on how many bullets he used up.

DiNozzo caught sight of a branch twitching, and fired. His aim was good, despite the poor sights: there was a yelp, and a thud. _Another one bites the dust,_ he thought grimly.

 _Gibbs, where are you? I could use some help…_

* * *  
 _Dammit, was there no end to this mess?_ Gibbs kept the curses inside, running back the way he'd come, Ziva keeping pace. What the hell was he supposed to do when they got back there? Sit down politely with the terrorists and ask them nicely to please stop shooting at DiNozzo? Hah! They'd throw in an extra round of buckshot just for bringing up the topic.

Not a lot of choice here, not if he wanted to avoid being put to the trouble of training a new field agent to take DiNozzo's place. No, they'd have to do this the hard way, without guns. Gibbs really missed not having a functioning handgun at his disposal. At least Ziva still had her knife, and it was already in the Mossad agent's hand. A quick gesture— _you go this way, and I'll go that_ —and she melted off into the brush.

How many of the little buzzards were there? Didn't matter; they _all_ needed a serious adjustment in their attitudes, and counting them before hand would only take time away from plucking their feathers. Gibbs crept up behind one, a singleton with a gun aimed right at where he supposed DiNozzo was hiding. Not a twig snapped, not a leaf rustled. Gibbs reached out with two long arms.

The odds improved by one.

Now Gibbs had a gun, a long barreled rifle that he could put to good use. He sighted along the metal; not the best but it would do in a pinch. Gibbs was definitely feeling pinched.

He selected his target, a man in a pair of dirty jeans and tee, holding his own rifle in a manner that suggested that he knew which was the business end. Gibbs picked his spot and fired.

The shriek echoed well above the gunfire. The man spun around and dropped his weapon, clutching at his shoulder and trying to keep the blood inside where it belonged. Gibbs tightened his lips in satisfaction. That shriek gave a lot of people a lot of information. It told DiNozzo that reinforcements had arrived. It told Ziva that Gibbs himself had taken out two of the enemy—one who used to own the gun and the other who was the recipient of the bullet—and that it was fine for her to proceed in a less clandestine manner. It also told the enemy that this was not going to be the easy turkey shoot that they had anticipated and that a hasty retreat might be something to be considered.

But there was still a lot of them. From the gunfire, Gibbs estimated that the enemy had a force of at least half a dozen, perhaps more. Six against two? Gibbs wasn't going to count on DiNozzo, knowing the shape that the man had been in when they'd left him on what was supposed to be a simple baby-sitting detail. Trust DiNozzo to be a trouble magnet…

There was always bluffing. "DiNozzo!" Gibbs bellowed.

"Yeah, boss?" called back from across the clearing.

No doubt about it: DiNozzo was not in top form. Wonder how many bullets his agent had left? Probably not many. He hadn't had many to start with. "You get through to the Marines?"

"They'll be here any minute."

Right. Like DiNozzo was going to announce, with everyone listening to every word, that he'd managed to contact a close to retirement medical examiner for help. That would certainly strike fear into the hearts of evil-doers. It would be a close call as to whether the terrorists finished laughing before or after they shot each of the NCIS people. No, make that _after_. Gibbs and his people would be a source of amusement for many years to come.

That was assuming that DiNozzo had been able to get through with the spotty cell reception in these mountains, an assumption that Gibbs wasn't about to make. Realistically thinking, even if DiNozzo had been able to punch a signal through the erratic cell phone service, it would take another hour or more for Ducky to convince the Marines to put a bird up to ferry a squad out here to look for them. No, better to try to take these bozos down by themselves. It would look better when the Marines actually did arrive if Gibbs and company could have the terrorists all tied up in a neat little package. Calling for help was embarrassing.

Of course, ending up dead would be even more embarrassing. Gibbs caught a branch rustling out of the corner of his eye, whirled and shot. Another yelp, and a body flopped out of the brush with its handgun tumbling from a hand no longer capable of holding it.

His shot advertised his own whereabouts to the enemy, and they responded by peppering his general vicinity with enough lead to open a pewter refinery. Gibbs hit the dirt, hoping that the boulder giving him shelter was made of something a little more substantial than sandstone. Granite would be nice. Six inch tank shielding would be even nicer.

They needed cover. Gibbs identified where DiNozzo was and decided that the shallow cave that the man had wedged himself into would serve very nicely as cover for three pinned down NCIS agents. The enemy would only be able to come at them from one direction, the others being blocked by several feet of rock and stone. Gibbs rolled to another place of meager safety, this one a bit closer to his new objective.

Gibbs eyeballed his target and the agent trying to hold it safe. "DiNozzo!"

"Boss?"

No doubt about it. DiNozzo didn't have much left in him. Where the hell was Ziva? Gibbs hadn't heard anything from the Israeli agent since they'd split up. Had they gotten her? Gibbs doubted that. There would have been some screeches of joy from the enemy if that had happened. No, more likely she was still skulking around behind them, slipping that deadly knife of hers into an oh-so-deserving set of ribs.

Open area: mad dash. DiNozzo, once he realized what Gibbs was doing, added his part by sending a couple of desperately needed bullets out to force the terrorists to pull back.

Gibbs dove into the opening, rolling up next to the wall. He was back on his feet in a flash, rifle in hand, and another round cracked the air in a futile attempt to locate and destroy another target. He spared a glance for his agent. "You okay?"

DiNozzo flopped against the wall of the shallow cave, not taking his eyes off of the opening. "Just peachy." He scanned the area outside. "Ziva?"

"Last I saw, she was having fun."

Now DiNozzo did groan. "I can bet. McGee?"

"Good question." Gibbs had more important things on his mind for the immediate next sixty seconds. "You get through to Ducky?"

DiNozzo didn't like what he had to say next. "Don't think so, boss. The signal didn't look like it got through. Maybe."

"You didn't talk to him?"

DiNozzo clearly wished that he could reply in the affirmative. "Nope. I'm hoping that a caller ID might get him or Abby to investigate."

"Worth a shot." Gibbs put another bullet where he wanted it. A screech confirmed his aim. Then he took another moment to look over the man whose cave he was sharing, and Gibbs didn't like what he saw. "Pull back, DiNozzo. Conserve your ammo."

"Boss—"

"Don't argue, DiNozzo."

The man didn't. There was very little left to argue with. DiNozzo drooped back against the wall of the cave, out of direct target range, not closing his eyes but looking as though the decision to keep watching for the enemy wasn't going to be his to make in a very few short minutes.

This was cutting it closer than Gibbs cared to. He coldly assessed the situation, noting where every shot was coming from. Each shot, he knew, represented an enemy combatant. He had an operative out there somewhere doing damage, but she was not armed with anything more than a knife. If Ziva acquired a rifle, she would withdraw to a reasonable target distance and start picking them off one by one. Since that hadn't happened, Gibbs could only surmise that she had chosen to continue to eliminate the enemy by hand which meant that he would need to be careful not to mistake her for someone from the other side.

Bullets were also in short supply. Gibbs too would need to conserve his ammunition. _Make each one count,_ he chanted to himself.

He did. Yet another terrorist went to meet his Maker. Then one more went down, only this one would survive to see some health care professionals with instructions to patch him up for interrogation.

Then he heard it: a heavy, low drone. Gibbs knew that sound. He knew it intimately, having ridden in a similar vehicle making similar sounds more times than he could count. Reinforcements!

He risked sticking his head out of the cave just far enough to eyeball parachutes blossoming against the blue sky. It was one of the most welcome sights he'd seen. DiNozzo had gotten through! Ducky had seen the name on his cell phone screen, correctly deduced that they were in trouble, and gotten the right people to pay attention. Gibbs had been right to tell DiNozzo to call the M.E. If he'd had the man try to contact anyone else, the front desk would have assumed that it was a crank call.

The terrorists immediately figured out that the advantage was no longer theirs, and tried to melt away. Tried—a sudden screech indicated that Ziva was still on the loose. Not to be outdone, Gibbs took one more shot: there was now an additional miscreant who was facing not only a long prison term but leg surgery as well. Still, the rustling in the bushes suggested that the original NCIS team had been seriously out-numbered, and that only skill aided by a healthy amount of luck was responsible for he and his still being in a condition to breathe effectively.

A small squad of burly Marines, automatic weaponry in full view and ready for use, rumbled in with feet creating a miniature earthquake, dumping used 'chutes as they went. Each one wore a set expression on their face that said that they meant business and that the mountains of West Virginia had just been opened for hunting season with no set limit on the amount of terrorists that each one could bag. They were the most beautiful sight that Gibbs had seen.

Maybe not. Their _leader_ looked even better.

"I want those bastards alive!" NCIS Director Jenny Shepard bawled. "They don't talk very well with holes in their chests."

In full body armor, the slender woman was hard to identify but Gibbs had no problem recognizing that voice—or the objective. Jenny Shepard had been a damn fine field agent before taking the Director position and she wasn't about to let a little thing like a desk stand in her way now. Dropping to one knee, she brought her own handgun up into the approved position, one hand steadying the other, and fired.

A shriek of pain. A fallen body. Suspect apprehended, advanced medical support to follow at NCIS convenience.

Jethro Gibbs could kiss that woman.

Director Shepard wasn't finished yet. She took one look at Gibbs, on his feet, and at DiNozzo, propping up the cave wall with blood drying on his face, and yelled, "Ducky! We need you over here!"

"Quite so, Director." Dr. Ducky Mallard, little black bag in hand that hadn't been used in a couple of decades, hustled forward from the chopper with a speed that belied his apparent age. "Anthony, you appear to have been tussling with the neighborhood bullies. Hasn't anyone discussed with you the inherent unpleasant ramifications of actions such as those?"

"Not in the last five minutes," DiNozzo mumbled through bruised and battered lips.

"Consider yourself counseled yet again. Where does it hurt?" Ducky started to probe.

"Everywhere, Ducky. Better to ask where it _doesn't_ hurt."

"All right then: where does it not hurt?"

"Nowhere—ow!" DiNozzo hissed as something exploded inside at Ducky's triggering touch.

Gibbs looked up in alarm. "Ducky?" He didn't like the way DiNozzo, already pale, whitened even further.

"I think we'll let some of the x-ray technicians have a look at you, Anthony," Ducky told them both, "and I'm going to advise allowing some of these nice young men tote you out of here on a stretcher."

"Sounds good to me," DiNozzo forced out between clenched teeth.

Directed Shepard advanced on Gibbs, glaring and keeping another eye out for the Marines still chasing the terrorists trying disappear into the brush. "I knew that sending you and DiNozzo to that sexual harassment seminar would be trouble; I just didn't know _how_ much. What is it this time, Jethro? What happened, and just exactly who did you piss off?"

There were times to grovel, and this was one of them. Gibbs put on his most innocent face. "Terrorists, Director."

"In the back woods of West Virginia? You were sent out here to investigate the murder of a petty officer." _Talk your way out of this one, Jethro,_ her face said.

Fortunately, Gibbs had the truth on his side. "Yes, ma'am. It all started with a data stick…" He drew her aside, keeping his voice down as he filled her in. The Marines filtered their way back to the camp as they talked, taking charge of the prisoners and giving the pair plenty of space. Overhearing NCIS intelligence was not something that they were eager to do, especially after the first two were glared away by the NCIS director.

"Which is when you arrived with the Marines," Gibbs concluded.

"Lucky for you that we did," Shepard told him, trying not to let her tone go soft. It had been close; very close. They both realized that. Shepard raised her voice to the Marines. "Get that stretcher over here. I want DiNozzo on one of the choppers going out, ahead of the prisoners. Keep the other one in the air and searching for the escapees. Close radio contact, gentlemen; I want those bastards in custody before sundown. I'd let 'em rot if we didn't need 'em for questioning," she added in a grumble. "As it is, the FBI people will be on my doorstep, demanding that our prisoners be turned over to their department, as soon as they get wind of what we have." Then she got serious. "There's one problem, Jethro: DiNozzo didn't get through. I didn't get the message from Ducky. Did Ziva—?"

"Not her, Jenny," Gibbs started to say, when the Mossad agent herself appeared. She was prodding another terrorist with his own gun stuck into his back, pushing the man forward.

Ziva greeted them with a cheerful and entirely satisfied expression. "Director Shepard, what a pleasant surprise. I have a gift for you." She shoved the man forward, almost toppling him over onto his face. "This man claims to be Jameel al-Hamid, the Hacksaw of Hormuz." In the stunned silence that followed, she continued, "personally, I doubt it. He is too stupid and too weak to be al-Hamid. He has already volunteered the location of where his friends hang out. We should be able to stroll over there, Director, when we return to D.C., and take it apart at our leisure."

"Volunteered, Officer David?" Director Shepard asked with a whole other question in the tone of her voice. _Was the' volunteering' done according to department regulations on interrogating suspects?_ The knocking knees on the terrified suspect led them to wonder.

"Of course, Director Shepard." Butter could melt in her mouth, Ziva was so innocent. "There is much that 'Jameel' wishes to share with us. Isn't there, 'Jameel'?" She let her eyes roam over the other prisoners, watching as they fixed their eyes on the man who had supposedly 'helped' the enemy. "'Jameel' has been extremely detailed in the information that he gave to me: more plots that are being worked on, and targets that they expect to blow up. Perhaps if we were to leave him alone with his friends, he could persuade them to be helpful, also."

Everyone there knew exactly how persuasive 'Jameel' would be. They also knew how dead 'Jameel' would be once his 'friends' were finished with him. That wasn't the point. Leveraging more valuable information from an enemy combatant was.

Director Shepard had more important things on her mind. "Where's McGee, Gibbs? You said that he's the only one who can identify al-Hamid."

"Good question, Jenny. Wish I knew."

"Considering the intel that he has, I agree." Director Shepard made some rapid deployment decisions. "Are you up to continuing the search?"

Gibbs was stung. "He's my agent, Jenny. Do you have to ask?"

"Yes, Gibbs, I do," Shepard shot back. "You've been shot at, nearly drowned, and you ran into a burning building to drag others out. I'll ask it again: are you fit to continue?"

Gibbs started to growl and then thought better of it. His director had a point. "Yes, ma'am," he replied meekly.

Shepard turned to her other agent. "Ziva?"

Ziva had learned from Gibbs's performance, and knew what to do. "Yes, Director Shepard, I am," she lied, lifting her chin.

"Good. Find Sgt. Suhalis and re-arm yourselves properly. If neither you, Ziva, or DiNozzo was responsible for the call for help, then it had to have been McGee, which means that as of an hour ago he was still alive." Shepard tucked her own handgun back into its shoulder holster. "We're going hunting."

* * *

McGee stared at the dark screen of the computer.

The entire last hour was as blank as the screen in front of him. McGee dimly remembered stumbling out of the water, crawling up onto the bank of the river that had finally slowed to something that he could wade through. Had he spotted a cabin? Must have, because he was currently inside it. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what it looked like from the outside. That part of his life was completely missing.

The door had stopped him. He wasn't Ziva, or Gibbs, to be skilled at picking the lock to the door. There were shards of glass on the floor of the cabin, twinkling in the late morning sun, next to the wall. Either McGee had gotten himself inside by breaking the window or he'd found it already broken. McGee hoped it was the latter; breaking and entering, even under these circumstances, was not something that he wanted to think himself capable of doing.

His side throbbed. When he'd taken his hand away, it had been covered with blood and McGee remembered making the conscious decision not to investigate his injury any further. There was nothing he could do about it, and looking at it would only make him feel worse.

Instead, he'd stumbled toward the piece of equipment that would always draw his attention: a computer. A laptop, to be more exact, and one that still possessed a modicum of power in the battery. McGee used that power to send an urgent email message to someone that he knew could decipher where this message had originated: Abby Sciutto.

Had the message gone through? Midway through one-handedly typing the missive the little balloon had popped up advising him to save his work before he lost it all together, and that plugging the power cord into the wall would be a very good idea. The bars indicating signal strength from The Outside World were also fading, advising NCIS Agent McGee that he should consider himself damn lucky that the laptop had WiFi capability instead of needing to be hooking into the phone line—which was already dead.

Plugging the laptop into the wall would have been a good idea if there was any power flowing through the outlet, but McGee had already discovered that electrical service to the cabin was a pipe dream. The only energy entering the place was sunlight provided by the windows and the owner of the cabin had neglected to supply the place with high end solar panels or any other alternate form of energy beyond a wood-burning stove. Somehow McGee strongly doubted that the energy from stove could be harnessed to successfully power the laptop even if he had the strength left to get a fire started.

The screen went black; the last vestiges of power had been drained from the battery, and McGee didn't have the least idea whether or not he'd been successful in getting out his cry for help. Exhausted, hurting, and feverish, he put his head down on the table next to the laptop. A short rest, and then he'd turn to seeing if there was anything else in this cabin that he could use.

McGee never realized when he slipped to the floor, unconscious.

* * *

Gibbs hooked his hands underneath DiNozzo's arms, gently lifting one end of the injured man onto the stretcher while another of the Marines lifted the other. Not gentle enough; the groan was stifled into an agonized hiss. Dammit, couldn't the man even slip into unconsciousness to escape? "Ducky, give him some more morphine."

"It's…okay…" DiNozzo gasped, trying to catch his breath, trying to relax onto the canvas stretched between the two poles.

Ducky shook his head. "Not advisable, Jethro. I've already given him as much as I dare under the circumstances. Give it time."

It was the best they could do. Gibbs didn't have to like it but he did have to accept it. "Go with him," he ordered.

Again, Dr. Mallard disagreed. "Petty Officer Mason is a fine medic; Mr. DiNozzo will be better off in his care while transported to the Trauma Unit. There are others here that I must see to."

Others that would rather slit his medical examiner's throat than be treated by him. Gibbs didn't need to tell Ducky that; his friend of long-standing was well aware of the situation and wasn't about to be denied adherence to his Hippocratic oath despite the danger.

Nothing he could do about that, either, but he could make sure that another of his team didn't fall victim to these bastards that had turned DiNozzo into spaghetti sauce, heavy on the tomato paste. "You, you, and you," he pointed to three of the biggest Marines. "I want you at Dr. Mallard's side. Any one of those bastards gets to him, you'll answer to me. Understand?"

Gibbs wasn't in their chain of command, but each of the three understood where the NCIS team leader was coming from and where he had been. "Yes, sir," one answered for all of them. "Don't worry about your doc. You just go after your other man."

Shepard motioned to him from across the clearing, Ziva by her side. "Gibbs," she called, "are you coming?"

"Be right there." Gibbs took a moment to squeeze DiNozzo's shoulder. "Don't give them a hard time, DiNozzo," he said softly.

DiNozzo managed a drooping smile, his pupils already pinpoint. "Right, boss." The words were now slurring.

Ducky had been right; the morphine was kicking in. Gibbs watched as the pair of Marines lifted the stretcher with his subordinate, moving toward where the chopper was hovering. The second chopper was already moving in a standard search pattern, the pilot and co-pilot scanning the area and trying to see through the heavy forestry to locate both McGee and any of the terrorists who had escaped when the Marines made their entrance.

"Now, Jethro. Unless you want a ride back yourself." Shepard was tired of waiting. There was another agent out there, one with valuable intel, and time was wasting.

Gibbs got himself over there. He dropped into an easy jog that would nonetheless eat up the miles in no time, the others having no difficulty keeping up with him. "You said that DiNozzo didn't get through to Ducky, Jenny. How did you know to get out here?"

"You've made a lot of friends in a short period of time, Jethro." Jogging didn't impede Director Shepard's ability to converse one bit. "It started with a ham radio operator in Starksville named Dennis something-or-other. Claimed to be on the local police force, and that the storm had taken down both the landlines and prevented cell service. Sound familiar?"

"Know the man." Gibbs made a mental note to himself to get back to Starksville and stand a round of beer for the entire force. "They send you up this way?"

"It took a while for him to get through to me," Shepard admitted. "At first, it sounded like some sort of a hoax. Then I was able to get some details, things such as getting shot at and picking up some sort of important intelligence. This Dennis person didn't know what the intel was, just that it had you upset and that you were the hell out of there. He said that you got shoved into water, was worried that you had drowned."

"Shoved into the water, yes. Drowned: not quite." Gibbs picked up the pace, everyone keeping up with him. "At least, not three of us. I still don't know where McGee is. Ziva and I found some traces of him downstream, the way we're headed. I don't know if he's alive," he had to admit, ignoring what it cost him to say that.

"We think he is," Shepard told him. "As I said: DiNozzo didn't get through. Right after your friend from Starksville contacted me, I called for back up. The roads to this area have all been washed out, and our people called the Army Corp of Engineers to help get a bridge or two up fast. At the time when the Starksville man contacted us, the storm was still in full swing. I wasn't going to be able to put a chopper in the air."

"And—?" Gibbs prompted. It sounded like there was more.

There was. "Abby called me, frantic. It wasn't signed, but she thought the message sounded like McGee, only it wasn't encrypted and it wasn't from his usual email address."

"What did it say?"

"Help. Cabin," Shepard repeated. "Just those two words. They mean anything to you?"

"Yeah," Gibbs grunted, "but they're not all that useful. There are dozens of small cabins in these woods, places for guys to get away for a weekend of beer. Nothing else? Couldn't Abby trace it back, like McGee does?"

"She's working on it," Shepard said. "She's narrowed the servers down to West Virginia."

"That's a start." Gibbs couldn't help the sarcasm.

"We're working under a lot of impossible conditions, Jethro," Shepard reproved. "Landlines are still out and cell service is spotty in these mountains. We wouldn't have radio contact with D.C. if we didn't have the chopper above us to relay messages. She'll call us with anything. She was frantic, Jethro," Shepard repeated.

Yeah. Gibbs could imagine. His forensics specialist had a soft spot in her heart for the computer geek, and she would be racing back and forth trying to track down where the email had come from, begging her tech toys for more speed.

That was at the root of the problem: where _had_ the email come from? How had McGee been able to get online? Why wasn't he still online, sending out more messages?

Too many questions, not enough answers. Gibbs shook forth another effort, leading the group to the last place where he and Ziva had spotted evidence of their resident geek.

It didn't take them long to retrace their steps. Gibbs stopped for a moment to regain the trail.

There was something more. Gibbs pointed out the new footprints. "The escapees," he determined. "They were here; they found the same thing that we did." He stared off downstream. "They're about five minutes ahead of us."

"Which means that we shall have to make up the time," Ziva said as calmly as if she was proposing a trip to the local history museum. She checked that her newly acquired handgun was secure in its holster. "Let's be off."

* * *

McGee slowly came to himself, the pain in his side refusing to let him rest.

 _Crap._ He was on the floor, and the floor was not only rough but dirty. He sneezed.

 _Flame washed through him, agonized and torn muscles screaming and refusing to let anything so mundane as breathing take place again until a long period of punishment had been completed._

Note to self: no more sneezing.

That was going to be difficult, since the dust was tickling his nose, and McGee suspected that trying to rise from this spot on the floor was going to be something of a challenge. He'd seen wet dish rags with more energy than he currently possessed. He concentrated on passing air through his lips, encouraging the rest of him to become more than adequately oxygenated in case he should need to move again.

 _Achoo._

Shit!

He curled up into himself, willing the knifing pain to ease itself away more quickly, leaving him trembling with sweat pouring off of him.

The trembling kept going, and McGee cursed again under his breath. Fever! Hadn't he warned himself? No wonder he felt hot and cold at the same time.

Well, he could either lie here on the floor surrounded by dust and glass shards, sneezing periodically with its attendant pain, or he could summon what little strength he had to get himself out of this mess, since there didn't seem to be any point in counting on the rest of his team. He hadn't seen Gibbs or Ziva or Tony since last night when Tony jumped the sedan, and there wasn't anything to suggest that they had survived the crash.

More than that: he was an NCIS agent, sworn to his country, and he was in possession of intelligence that could possibly save thousands of lives. He had a _responsibility_ to get that intelligence to his superiors, which meant that lying here on the floor was not an option. McGee started to push himself up with his hands.

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor had clearly been moved to a spot just under his ribs, for an explosion mushroomed into his side once again.

Lying on the floor suddenly became a much more attractive option. In fact, it became the _only_ option for the next few minutes.

Okay, new plan: lie here for a while until some of his strength came back. McGee didn't have to sneeze. Not really. He could pull some of his wet shirt up over his nose so that the dust wouldn't get to him. He could do that. He could. He could lie here, trying to pretend that he was comfortable, until he was stronger and then he could get up and go for help. He could do that.

McGee told himself that over and over, worked it through his fever-addled wits until he believed it would happen, and settled himself to wait until the proper moment.

Until voices came in through the broken window. Voices that McGee didn't recognize. Voices that had an accent, almost but not quite British or American. Voices that broke down the door.

"Haksim! Look what we have found!"

* * *

They were making good time, Gibbs on one side of the creek and Ziva on the other, the Marines and Director Shepard trailing them, the pair scanning for signs that McGee's body had washed up somewhere downstream. Ziva had the advantage: the footprints that all were convinced belonged to the remnants of the terrorist cell were on her side of the water, and she was using them to increase her pace. Her team was several yards ahead of Gibbs.

The radio squawked, and the Marine carrying it hastened to complete the connection. He handed the box to Gibbs.

"Gibbs."

"Gibbs! You're alive! It's Abby, back at NCIS Headquarters."

"I know where you are, Abby." There wasn't time for this. They were in hot pursuit. Gibbs tried to keep his temper under control. "What have you got?"

"I tracked the email back to the computer of origin. You know, every computer has a unique address, represented by a series of numbers. Once I was able to figure out what that was, I contacted the main IPs in the area to find out who owned that computer—"

"Cut to the chase, Abbs. Working against the clock."

"Right. Take this down, Gibbs. The guy said that he left his laptop in his weekend cabin."

"Where is it, Abby?"

"Somewhere off of Route 16, Gibbs. But, Gibbs, you can't get there. The roads are washed out."

" _Where_ off of Route 16, Abby?" _I'll get there,_ passed through both air and airwaves.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Gibbs. Take these numbers down." Abby recited several sets of numbers.

Gibbs understood immediately. "Latitude and longitude."

"Have the chopper guys spot it from the air, and guide you to it," Abby directed. "And, Gibbs?"

"Yes, Abby?" No more time. Gibbs allowed impatience to float through the air waves.

"Bring him home safe."

"I will, Abby." Gibbs shut down the contact.

* * *

In a daze, McGee felt them search his pockets for ID, felt them drag his badge out of his pocket and examine it.

"This is the one. The fourth."

"Question him. Did they find the data stick?"

In a blackening haze, he felt them grab the remnants of his jacket and hoist him up into the air.

 _Hah. Beat you. Passing out before I can say anything…_

* * *

Gibbs pulled up short. There it was: the cabin that Abby had pinpointed. The chopper was high up in the sky, too high for the sound of the blades to be anything more than the buzzing of bees going after honey.

Gibbs had left the river bank some hundred yards back, guided by the pilot who had spotted the cabin. It looked deserted, the pilot reported.

Gibbs knew better. The footprints had stopped on Ziva's side of the water and had picked up on his. The footprints had pointed in the direction of the cabin.

The time for caution was over. He didn't care that Jenny Shepard was his boss and technically in charge of this rescue mission; Gibbs was giving the orders. Silent hand signals went out to the Marines: no one would escape. The Marines spread out, looking to encircle the cabin. Not good enough; Gibbs wanted someone stationed at the back door. Ziva?

"They won't get past me," she promised in a whisper, and slipped away into the trees.

Shepard gestured: _on your mark, Jethro._

Gibbs went in.

* * *  
"Nothing," one voice reported. "He does not have the data stick on him." McGee felt the hands finish frisking him, didn't find anything in his pockets beyond his ID and his wallet and a bit of loose change. They dropped him back into an over-stuffed chair, one spring digging into his back.

Movement was out of the question. He didn't have it in him, despite the discomfort of the untethered spring. That little ache was nothing compared to the inferno that his side had become.

A blessing in disguise, that injury. The terrorists—there was no doubt that that was who they were—couldn't question him. McGee was grateful to pass out every time they touched him. He could keep this up until he died.

"Kill him," the voice ordered. "We take no chances."

McGee heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

Seemed like dying was going to come a little sooner than McGee had anticipated…

* * *

 _Kick down the door. See the bastard aiming a gun at McGee, see the shock on the bastard's face at Gibbs's entrance._ Gibbs didn't let him recover from his shock. He shot him where he stood.

There were three more, all standing around the chair that held the computer geek. Each one of them knew the stakes. Each one of them knew that they couldn't let the computer geek live, not if their cause was to survive with its leader undetected. Each one of them pulled out another weapon and aimed.

Gibbs shot one.

Shepard, at his elbow, did for another.

The Marines finished the third. Blood poured onto the floor from three different directions.

Not enough. Bullets came flying out from the back room—another enemy combatant!

"McGee!" Gibbs yelled, knowing that the man was unconscious. He leaped, taking McGee out of the chair and down to the floor for whatever meager safety it could offer.

Another shot from the back room, the bullet going wild, then a surprised gurgle. A shocked body tottered out into view, blood bubbling from his lips, and collapsed.

"Hold your fire!" Shepard yelled.

Gibbs looked up. Ziva appeared from the back room, blood on her knife. She stared at Gibbs on the ground, McGee flopped beside him. She ignored the body she had just dispatched. "Is he…?" she breathed.

"Not yet," Gibbs said grimly. "Get on the radio. Get Ducky here _now_."

Shepard moved in, relieved Gibbs of his gun. "For you, too, Jethro," she said gently.

Which was when Gibbs realized that the stinging in his shoulder wasn't just a splinter from the roughly hewn wood floors.

* * *

There was more than enough blood in the cabin, Gibbs decided dourly, and too much of it was lying on the floor and on the furniture. That blood ought to be inside the various bodies.

Four dead terrorists. Gibbs couldn't find it within himself to be sorry; those four had been about to kill McGee. A shiver of cold ran through him—just a few seconds later, and the picture of the Hormuz Hacksaw would have been lost along with a damn fine NCIS agent.

Still could happen. McGee had only briefly surfaced to consciousness, enough to realize that he was alive and surrounded by friends, and then succumbed to his own personal darkness. Ducky, summoned from the glade where he'd treated DiNozzo, had taken one look at his new patient and slapped on a heavy dressing to prevent any more blood loss. A field bag of intravenous fluids came next, a large bore needle allowing access to hypovolemic blood vessels. Ducky slipped the bag under McGee's head, using the weight of the skull rather than gravity to push in the life-saving liquid.

"There isn't much I can do for him, Jethro," Ducky reported, letting his querulous tone indicate his worry, "not here in the forest. The man needs immediate surgery and intravenous antibiotics to survive." He finished injecting McGee with something in a large syringe, and fixed his friend with a stern eye. "Jethro, sit down! And stop hovering," he added. "You'll do no one any good if you topple over onto your face, and I'm not in the mood to try to pick you up. You weigh substantially more than I do," he complained.

"Ducky—"

Jenny Shepard moved in to back up the medical examiner. "Sit down, Jethro," she ordered. "That chair. Now." She pointed.

"Jenny—"

" _Now_ , Jethro. You're going into shock," Shepard said. "Listen to your director, if you're not going to listen to your doctor." She turned, her attention caught by Ziva, directing the Marines.

"Bring that stretcher inside," Ziva told them, using hand gestures to emphasize her words. "Our man goes out first, ahead of any of the dead bodies," she insisted, although no one was arguing.

Ducky took over. "You there, take his head. You at the feet, and the rest of you gather 'round. On the count of three: one, two, three." With so many hands, McGee's unconscious body was gently deposited onto the wire frame stretcher and strapped in, the Marines toting him outside where he could be lifted on cables to the hovering helicopter and flown to immediate help.

Ducky turned to Gibbs. "Your turn, Jethro."

Gibbs tried to object. "The crime scene—" He stopped, feeling suddenly woozy. He grabbed for something to steady himself, almost missing the chair back that would offer meager support. He blinked, trying to get the room to stop spinning. "Ducky?"

Ducky smiled victoriously. "Hah. I wondered when the morphine I gave you would kick in. I gave you enough to sedate a grizzly bear." He gestured to a couple more Marines that were floating nearby. "I believe Special Agent Gibbs is now ready for transport, gentlemen. You may strap him in without fear for the consequences."

The last thing that Jethro Gibbs remembered was getting himself lifted up into the same chopper as McGee, complaining all the way with no one listening to his objections. The steady whirring of the chopper blades mingled in with the throbbing in his shoulder until he passed out entirely.

* * *

"Ducky," Gibbs tried to complain.

He looked at the wheelchair in distaste. Hospital personnel had already stripped him of the wet shirt that he'd tossed over his shoulders, leaving his chest bare for every Dr. Tom, Dr. Dick, and Nurse Harry to view. He'd drawn the line at losing his pants, no matter how much they tried to cajole him. Likewise, sedation had been out of the question. Local only, he'd told the trauma doc, and silently suffered through the process getting the bullet pried out of his shoulder. Putting a heavy white bandage over the spot had been better; the tight dressing seemed to take away some of the throbbing, and it was almost a relief to drop his arm into the sling that they'd given him.

But a wheelchair? Not a chance. He was going _home_. "Ducky," he started to say.

"Jethro, these lovely nurses just spent several minutes making sure that your bandage is white," Ducky told him in no uncertain terms. "They also administered some rather potent narcotics for pain control."

"I'm aware of that, Ducky." He was. His backside still felt the drug burning its way into his flesh.

"Then you are clearly not aware that the pain medication is likely to cause extreme dizziness and that you will fall over onto the floor and onto your injury and muss up those dressings, Jethro." Ducky indicated the wheelchair once again. "Sit _down,_ Jethro. Or I will ask these two gentlemen to assist you."

Gibbs eyed the two that Ducky had indicated: fellow Marines. They were the pair that Director Shepard had requisitioned to act as bodyguards for each of the NCIS team until McGee woke up and gave them the intel that would lead to the capture of the Hacksaw of Hormuz. Gibbs scowled. His fellow Marines ought to help him out of this mess; _esprit de corps,_ and all that. Not here. Shepard and Ducky had gotten to them first, telling them that not only was Gunny Sergeant Gibbs wounded in combat but was also at risk for being shot at _again_ by foreign agents who thought that he too possessed McGee's information.

He sighed.

* * *

Abby tiptoed into the hospital room, carrying a laptop and followed by Gibbs, Ducky and Shepard.

Shepard tossed a glance at the two bodyguards that were assigned to Gibbs. "You can wait outside," she directed them. "You, too," she added to the pair that were stationed inside the hospital room. "Believe me, this is not something you want to overhear."

"Yes, ma'am." The second pair joined the first in the hall.

"Director Shepard." DiNozzo was looking better, Gibbs decided, sitting up in a chair beside his hospital bed. A rainbow of hues still decorated his face, but they were lighter in color than yesterday and Gibbs chose to interpret that as an improvement. Looking under the one-size-fits-nobody hospital gown to see the rest of the damage wasn't going to happen. However, speech was clearer and the gaze that DiNozzo offered the world was significantly better than yesterday's, which meant that healing was taking place no matter how bruised the man appeared.

Shepard put on a welcoming smile. "How are you feeling, Tony?"

"Much better," DiNozzo lied, carefully not shifting aching muscles in the uncomfortable chair. "Twenty four hours has made a world of difference."

"Oh, Tony," Abby said, her eyes big. "I can't believe that they did that to you. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Abbs." Accuracy was fine for her lab but outside Abby Sciutto preferred to live in her own world, a world that didn't include friends who were hurting. DiNozzo's eyes narrowed as he took in the sling hung around Gibbs's neck. "Gibbs?"

"A scratch." Gibbs wasn't above a few lies himself.

"You should have seen the other guy," Shepard put in, trying for normalcy.

Didn't work. Dr. Mallard didn't cooperate. "I did, Director," he said testily. "Both at the cabin when called to attend several more living victims, and then again in my morgue."

"Yes, well." Shepard sent him a glare, which the medical examiner prudently ignored, and turned to the occupant of the other bed. "Tim?"

"Director." It was tough to come to attention when flat on one's back, but McGee tried. And failed.

"Are you sure that we need to do this now, Jenny?" Ducky asked. "The boy will be much better able to give us a description in another twenty four hours."

"We can't wait, doctor." Shepard's voice held a warning. She turned back to McGee. "We let leak that you and DiNozzo were at another hospital. It was attacked last evening; another grenade in the lobby. We can't wait."

"Was anybody hurt?"

"Nothing serious. We didn't expect such a rapid response to the leak, and we were lucky. We can't wait," Shepard repeated, as much to McGee's team mates as to the man himself.

"We can't wait," McGee agreed. "Abby, you've got the Facial Recognition program on the laptop? Can you get a signal out from here?"

"It'll take a couple of minutes to boot up," Abby said. "It's a tiny little thing. The laptop, I mean, not the program. It'll take a while to where it can be used. In my lab, I can just keep the computers on all the time so it doesn't take very long, Director, but this is different. I can't keep the laptop here. I mean, I could but someone would probably come along and take it—"

"I think we understand, Abby," Shepard reassured her.

It was McGee's turn. He coughed awkwardly, wincing as the movement pulled on yet to heal flesh. "Boss, I understand that I owe you my life—"

"You'd have done the same for me, McGee," Gibbs interrupted, clearly uncomfortable.

"Yes, but—"

"So just forget about it, McGee," Gibbs told him with more force. "You can thank me by giving us that damn head shot of al-Hamid. Get to it." Under the circumstances the 'head whack' was verbal only, but the intent was there. If asked later, Gibbs would insist it was because his 'head-whacking arm' was still in the sling.

"Okay, McGee, we're ready." Abby swung the screen of the laptop around to face her friend. "Shape of face?"

"Square. Make it a little bit longer, Abby. That's better."

"Eyes?"

"Brown. Round. Try the third set. No, that's not quite right; use the fifth instead. That's it. No, maybe not. Try sixteen."

Shepard drew Gibbs back. "This is going to take a while, Jethro. Let me buy you some coffee."

Gibbs, seeing the pair of geeks going at it, had to agree.

* * *

They re-entered the hospital room to find Dr. Mallard firmly removing the laptop from the overbed table so that McGee couldn't reach it. "You've done quite enough, Timothy," he said firmly.

"We haven't finished—"

Gibbs took one look at the man. McGee was pale and sweating, his eyes almost rolling back in his head but still determined to work. "You're finished for now, McGee," he told him. "Get some rest."

"But, boss—"

"Shut it down, Abby." There was no mistaking his intent; that was an order.

"Wait a minute, Jethro. How far did you get?" Shepard wanted to know.

McGee started to shrug, then thought better of the movement. "A good start, but it's not really the picture that I remember from the data stick. I need to work on it some more."

Shepard swung the laptop around so that she could see the unfinished portrait along with the others in the room. What McGee had come up with so far was the head shot of a swarthy individual who possessed clean and even features. The nose was long and straight, and the eyes a deep brown that seemed to pierce into each person's innermost thoughts without even trying. The dark eyebrows were over-large, not quite fitting on the rest of the man's face. Thin lips stood above a pointed chin, compressed into an expression of impatience. A slender scar was almost unseen on the right cheek, indicating that it had imperfectly healed many years ago.

Gibbs stared at the picture. There was something about it…

"Of course there's something familiar, Jethro," Shepard reproved, which was how he knew that he'd said something aloud. "You've been staring at Middle Easterners for two days. They've been shooting at you."

Gibbs shook his head. "No. There's something more. Something that I'm missing." He sighed heavily, annoyed with himself.

"You'll figure it out after you've rested," Ducky told him. "You too need to recuperate, Jethro."

Yeah. His shoulder hurt like a—Gibbs wasn't about to even _think_ the phrase, not with ladies present. But he'd seen this man, or someone rather like McGee's portrait, and recently.

He'd have to remember where.

"Ducky, I need to hit your morgue," he said. "I've seen someone who looks very much like this. I need to see the bodies of the ones killed, and I need to see the captives."

"Before the FBI gets to them," Shepard agreed. "Let's go. Gentlemen," she called to the Marines/bodyguards. "Check out the front lobby. I don't want grenades getting in my way."

* * *

"You can do it, McGeek," DiNozzo wheedled. "Look, I can even bring the laptop to you so you can work. You don't have to get up out of bed."

"That's good, Tony, because I don't think I can get out of bed," McGee shot back. "At least, not without falling on my face. Can you?"

"Sure," DiNozzo told him stoutly, tossing back the white hospital blanket to expose bare legs. "Want to see?"

"No. I'm tired, Tony. I want to rest. Without talking. I want to go to sleep."

DiNozzo took that to mean that McGee most enthusiastically did want to play with the laptop that Abby had left behind for when McGee felt up to working on the portrait of the Hacksaw of Hormuz. There was very little danger of the thing ending up in the wrong hands; the bodyguards were still posted both inside and out of their room, charged with making sure that only cleared personnel could get in to see them and only appropriate materials left. Dinner trays went in and out; laptops stayed put.

"Besides, you aren't supposed to use cell phones inside a hospital," McGee pointed out.

"That's for making calls, McGrasping At Straws," DiNozzo said, trying not to double over as he slipped both feet into the paper excuses for slippers that the hospital offered for its inmates. "We're not making calls. You're transferring the pictures on my cell onto the laptop and then emailing them to my email. C'mon, McGee," he wheedled. "I need to clear out space in my cell memory so that I can take pictures of some of the nurses around here. You know, the pretty ones."

"You mean, the ones you've been hitting on," McGee grumbled. "This is mis-use of government property, Tony."

"Only counts if you get caught," DiNozzo scoffed.

"Gary will be back any minutes." McGee was referring to one of the bodyguards who was on his dinner break at the moment. The other bodyguard was stationed outside, scanning the visitors who walked by.

"He won't mind. He likes looking, too, McGroper. You can't tell me that they don't have some good looking nurses around here."

"Tony—"

DiNozzo pulled the bedside table over, setting up the laptop and pushing buttons on the bed controls until he had McGee where he wanted him. He dropped himself onto the edge of McGee's bed, pulling his own cell phone out of the drawer where it had been deposited.

"It got wet, Tony," McGee said. "It may be damaged. I may not be able to pull anything off."

"So I'll put in for a new one. I got some really got shots at the conference. Remember Amy, the agent from the Milwaukee office? Blonde, blue-eyed—"

"Married," McGee put in pointedly.

"Details, details. There's more good shots that I took. Plug 'em in, McPhotoShoot."

"I should really be working on the Facial Recognition," McGee said wistfully, allowing the computer screen to draw him in.

"Looking at lovely pictures has healing properties," DiNozzo justified the task. "More healing equals better work. Think of it that way, McGee."

It wasn't easy and it took a lot more time than DiNozzo would have liked. The second bodyguard, Frank something-or-other, stuck his head in once to make sure that everything was okay when DiNozzo whooped over one of his less sedate photos by the indoor pool at the Philadelphia hotel. Another time McGee had to hurriedly minimize the screen when a nurse entered to give him some pills and McGee realized that DiNozzo had already embarked on his photo journey through DC General and that the nurse now administering his meds was the same one in DiNozzo's picture.

DiNozzo made McGee go through every one of the pictures. "No, don't bother with that one. In fact, delete it. The other one of her bending over is better."

"You're a pig. You know that, DiNozzo?"

"I hear that enough from Ziva, McPrim and Proper. Go to the next one."

"You took pictures of the lecturers, Tony?" McGee couldn't believe what his partner sometimes chose to do.

"Sure. Why not? I need a new poster to paste over my dart board."

McGee stared him, trying to figure out a good riposte to that remark. Brains weren't working properly, he decided. He'd think up something forty-eight hours later, when it didn't matter. It was the way of the world.

"C'mon, c'mon. Next picture, McGee."

The next picture was another lecturer, an older woman that McGee was certain would retire in the next week or so. She had taken a liking to McGee, and McGee had prudently removed himself from whatever part of the room that she was in. Courtesy would only go just so far, he reflected, working to pull in the next of DiNozzo's photos.

The next picture took a great deal of reconstituting, re-instructing the laptop's graphics program to put the colors where they belonged and filtering the edges back into hard lines. It took several tries before the picture finally resolved into the last lecturer of the first day, someone who had taken great pride in instructing the various NCIS agents across the country on how to refrain from profiling in violation of several equal rights rules and regulations. Since the man seemed to be of a Middle Eastern background, he'd spent a great deal of time and effort castigating the FAA's attempts at improving airport security, pointing out the deficiencies in facial recognition programs as well as the drawbacks of similar names, with an emphasis on how he himself had difficulty coping.

"For this, we spent five minutes getting it to come clear? This is not a picture I want to keep, not even for dart board value." DiNozzo was disgusted. "Delete it, and let's move on, McGee." He reached to hit the 'delete' key.

McGee knocked his hand away. "Wait, Tony."

"Hey! They're my pictures."

"Tony, it's him."

"Of course it's him, McGoogleEyes. He lectured at us for a very long time. This is one lecture that I don't want to remember. In fact, I don't want to remember any of those lectures."

"No, Tony, I mean, it's _him!_ " McGee started getting excited. "Tony, it's _him!_ "

"Him? Him, who? What do you mean…" DiNozzo let his voice trail off, the implications sinking it. The fun died away. Senior Agent Anthony DiNozzo, clad only in an ill-fitting hospital gown, took over. "Are you saying what I think you're saying, McGee?"

McGee pointed to the picture. "It's him. That's Jameel al-Hamid. Tony, he's part of NCIS!"

* * *

Ziva looked up as Gibbs ambled through the door, his arm still in a sling. She frowned. "What are you doing here, Gibbs?"

"Last time I looked, I worked here, Officer David."

She brushed off that comment. "You are on sick leave. Where are your bodyguards?"

"Ditched 'em at the front door. Where are yours?"

One corner of her mouth curled upward. "I, too, 'ditched' them," she informed him. "It seems unlikely that anyone would be able to kill us in here."

Gibbs dropped himself onto his chair behind his desk. "You hear anything from DiNozzo or McGee?"

"Ducky checked with the nurses, who said that they were doing fine. One noted that she was looking forward to discharging Tony as soon as possible."

Gibbs ignored that tidbit. "McGee get any further with the Facial Recognition program?"

"I doubt it. We would have heard if he had. Abby has said that she intends to return to the DC General this evening to help."

Gibbs grunted. "Good. We need that picture. The CIA is pestering Director Shepard, and she's breathing down my neck."

"We will get it shortly," Ziva predicted. "McGee will not rest until he recalls all of the details."

A shadow fell on Gibbs's desk, and he looked up. A man was there, a man with swarthy skin and fine features and a briefcase dangling from his hand. Gibbs recognized the face immediately, if not the name. "Gibbs," he said, inviting the man to introduce himself. "You're from the seminar in Philly, right? Can I help you with something?"

"Al Mason," the man gave back in return, offering his hand for a shake. "Actually, I'm here to help you." He produced four large cardboard envelopes from the briefcase. "Your certificates, Agent Gibbs, from the seminar. You'll need them for your files. Compliance with ethics courses is mandatory on a yearly basis, and if your jacket doesn't have one of these, you'll be on suspension until you retake the seminar. I recommend that you make a copy for your personal files at home to prevent that, unless you enjoy listening to the sound of my voice," he added wryly. "Here's yours," he said, handing one over.

"Thanks." Gibbs had better things to do than to collect pieces of paper to add to his dust collection. "I'll get 'em to my people."

"Not a problem. I see one of your people right here. Officer David," Mason said, handing over another of the envelopes to the Mossad agent. "Where are Agents DiNozzo and McGee?" He consulted the labels on the envelopes to be sure of getting the names correct.

"Not here," Gibbs said curtly.

"On assignment? When will they return?"

"You can give 'em to me," Gibbs repeated. "I'll see that they get them. Is it standard protocol to come all the way to DC to hand these things out, Mr. Mason?" _Is it standard protocol to waste my time, standing here chatting over stupid regulations?_

Mason gave in, and handed them over. He mellowed a bit from his stiff stance. "Thank you, Agent Gibbs. No, not standard, but I was coming down this way. I have relatives in North Carolina, so I decided to save the cost of the postage. We are all on a budget, you know, and my department more than most. Thank you again for your time, Agent Gibbs, Officer David. I hope you enjoyed the seminar."

"Very much," Ziva lied, her attention already turned to something on her screen, hoping that the man would go away and stop bothering her.

Gibbs's desk phone rang, and he also turned to it gratefully, dismissing the seminar leader without a second thought. He had more important things to attend to, and the trip to that seminar had turned out to be one of the less enjoyable excursions that he'd taken. "Gibbs."

Ziva automatically tried to listen in, an activity that became significantly less covert when Gibbs's next words were, "Slow down, DiNozzo. McGee did what?"

Pause for DiNozzo to repeat whatever he was reporting.

There were several ways to utter the word 'who': mild was the most common, as an interrogative. Ziva had also occasionally heard both Abby and Ducky partake of the word in reference to a large predatory bird. This was neither. The way Gibbs spoke gave the word the same force as a curse as well as an expostulation. "Who?!"

It was fortunate that she was listening to one side of the telephone conversation, because Gibbs's next words sent her flying. "That seminar guy, Ziva! Get him!"

Ziva dashed through the building, heading for the entrance. No one—she jumped on the front guard. "A man can through here, just moments ago. Where is he?"

The guard looked at her as though she was crazy. "Ma'am?"

"A dark-skinned man!" she all but screamed at him. "Where did he go?"

The guard blinked. "He left."

"Which way?"

"He took a cab, ma'am. Downtown."

Ziva ground her teeth. Too late.

* * *

Al Mason—AKA Jameel al-Hamid, AKA the Hacksaw of Hormuz—strode into DC General Hospital, carefully keeping the fuming under tight control. Only two of his quarry! Only two!

He reviewed the details leading up to this point: the computer hacker that al-Hamid had recruited, only to find the man putting duplicate files onto a data stick to use as blackmail against al-Hamid himself. Jameel al-Hamid had a wonderful way of dealing with those who turned on him: he killed them. Slowly and painfully he killed them, and laughed as his enemies died.

He wasn't laughing now, though he had as he'd killed the man, back in Philadelphia immediately following the seminar. This shouldn't have turned into this mess. The hacker had told him, his breath bubbling with blood, that he'd put the data stick into the laptop case of one of the DC NCIS agents. al-Hamid had sent a team to retrieve it before the data stick was found by the NCIS man.

His people had bungled the task, not just once but several times to the point where al-Hamid himself was now endangered. What was the infidel dog saying? _If you want something done right, do it yourself._ Because of their ineptitude, 'Al Mason' would need to disappear. However, if al-Hamid took certain precautions, there was no reason why he could not continue to study his enemy at close quarters. Those precautions included making sure that his face was still unknown, and because of his incursion into NCIS headquarters he was now confident that he could move forward.

al-Hamid would do the deed himself. The first pair, the leader and the Israeli woman, they did not know his face or they would have taken him down long before this. There would have been NCIS and FBI agents at his home as soon as the news broke, and that had not happened. That meant that the only other possibilities who knew what he looked like were the two NCIS men in DC General. Either one or the other or both knew that 'Al Mason' was Jameel al-Hamid and had been unable, by dint of injuries sustained, to transmit this information. Or perhaps neither was aware and this whole mission was unnecessary; al-Hamid might be putting himself out over nothing.

If al-Hamid killed them, the question would become moot.

He would need to act swiftly. Fortune had smiled upon him; the female Mossad agent had spoken of DC General Hospital as 'Mr. Mason' had walked up. They had not suspected—why should they? They were 'safe' inside NCIS headquarters. The poison on the certificates wouldn't act for several days, long enough so that the certificates wouldn't be suspected. The only ones al-Hamid needed to be concerned with were the pair still hospitalized.

There would be bodyguards at DC General. There would be checkpoints. His NCIS ID would get him past those checkpoints and as for the bodyguards?

Well, a few more dead bodies would only help his cause.

* * *

The man entered through the main lobby bearing a modest bouquet of flowers, wearing a tee shirt that bore the logo "Pauline's Flowers" on the back. He consulted the card on the plastic stick set in the center before approaching the front desk. Bright brown eyes twinkled from a face covered in smooth brown skin, a thick black mustache gracing his upper lip. "Hey, there," he greeted the woman behind the desk, with just a trace of an accent in his husky voice. "You new here?"

"Yup," she agreed, chewing on a wad of gum. "Who ya lookin' for?"

The man consulted the card again. "It says Margaret Walters, room 308, just like usual, just a different day, doll. She still there?"

The woman pushed short red hair behind her ears. "The computer says she's been in that room like forever. Who's sending her flowers?"

The man shrugged. "She must have family somewhere." He glanced around. "Geez, you got a lot of security today. You got some kind of celebrity here today?"

She snorted. "You think they'd tell me?"

He shrugged again. "Doesn't matter to you and me, doll. See you on the way back down." He shuffled off toward the elevators, ignoring the scrutiny by the two burly guards positioned beside them.

The woman at the desk waited until the man got onto the elevators and the doors closed behind him before picking up the phone. "Paging Dr. Caldwell, to the third floor."

Her phone rang almost immediately. "Director Shepard?"

Jenny Shepard no longer looked like a poorly paid hospital worker assigned to greet visitors at the front desk. Determination came onto her face, and she leaned back in her chair, feeling the welcome steel of her handgun hidden behind her back waistband. "Flower delivery man, carrying a small yellow bouquet. Five foot ten, dark skin, brown eyes, thick mustache. The card says room 308. Stay alert, Ziva."

Up on the third floor, a 'nurse' dressed in green scrubs hung up the phone. "Dr. Caldwell," she called to the man across the station. "There's a patient on his way up to see you."

Another woman, heavy-set, also dressed in scrubs but with a stethoscope hung around her neck, stage-whispered to her, "Honey, if you really want to sound like a nurse, keep your mouth shut. We don't go around telling doctors that their patients are coming up. That's a good way to get a doc to disappear on you."

"Sorry," Ziva said, not sorry at all. "I needed to tell him—"

"Here he comes," 'Dr. Caldwell' interrupted. "Get inside the med room, and out of the way," he instructed the real nurse. "Stay there until this is over." He carefully turned around so that he could observe the people coming out of the elevator by the reflection in the window in front of him. He adjusted the sling around his neck, well aware that the handgun hidden there was not standard hospital equipment. It was, however, for Jethro Gibbs.

The man was just as Shepard had described him. He held the card in his hand, searching for the room that the flowers were destined for—and passed right by room 308. He headed for the room where two burly Marines stood guard.

A hand signal, from 'Dr. Caldwell'. 'Nurse' David picked her head up from where she'd buried it in a medical chart, her hand reaching back for her replacement Beretta hidden underneath her utilitarian scrubs. Two other 'visitors' who were 'watching' from the doorways of two rooms on the other side of the floor responded to the action by abruptly heading to cut off any escape by the fire exit down at the far end. The two 'real nurses' who had been stationed there to make the scene look reasonably accurate, did as they had been instructed previously by melting away into the inner recesses where they wouldn't get hurt.

It went fast. Gibbs stepped around the corner, his handgun secure in his hands, aiming at the man's head. "Freeze!" he barked. "NCIS! Don't move!"

The flower delivery man responded by whirling around. Ziva almost shot him for that alone.

The bouquet dropped to the floor and spilled petals everywhere, the water in the shattered vase seeping out on the floor. The man shrieked in sudden terror.

"Freeze!" Ziva yelled at him again. "Hands where I can see them!" She advanced, keeping her Beretta trained on him, Gibbs moving in from the other side.

"Look, I ain't got no money on me!" the man squealed, clueless as to what was going down. "You can have it all! Just don't kill me!"

"Turn around!" Ziva slammed the man against the concrete cinder block walls, forcing out another yelp. "Hands behind your head, fingers locked."

"Search him," Gibbs ordered. "He got anything on him?"

"Nothing," Ziva reported grimly, finishing the task. "He's clean. And I use that term only to mean free of weapons," she added, wiping her fingers on her scrubs. "You are filthy," she told the suspect. "Don't you ever bathe?"

Gibbs had more important things on his mind. "What are you doing here?"

"Delivering flowers, doc." The man was shaking in his shoes. "That's all I'm doin', I swear!"

Gibbs toed aside some of the bouquet on the floor, looking for anything out of the ordinary—and not finding it. He picked up the card. "This says room 308. Why'd you go past it?"

"Doc, there was this guy outside who told me to. He gave me twenty bucks. Said all I had to do was go past room 308 for like a room or two, then double back and deliver the flowers like usual." The delivery man wasn't holding up the wall; the wall was holding up the delivery man. Without its support, his knees were going to dump him onto the floor.

Gibbs felt cold suddenly grip him. "Quick—what did this guy look like?"

"Kind of average, doc. Kind of like me; same color skin, same height. What's going on?" the man asked, voice still quivering.

"Go back downstairs and don't leave this building," Gibbs ordered the delivery man. "Ziva, you're with me. Siler, stay on guard here. The rest of you, search the building. He's here! Decoy, Jenny," he tossed to Director Shepard, the woman racing out of the stairwell with her own gun in hand. "He sent up a decoy: this guy. He's clean. Good thing we moved DiNozzo and McGee off of this floor," he added grimly.

"Just as we thought. al-Hamid's no fool. He knows that we were expecting him to make an attempt on our people." Shepard kept her cool. She pulled her comm. link to her lips. "Shepard here. The target is in the building. Close off all exits. No one enters or leaves without my say so. Check in."

"Check point one: secure."

"Check point two: secure."

"Check point three: secure." It went on for several more guards.

Gibbs didn't wait. Jameel al-Hamid was here, inside this hospital, and Gibbs was not going to let him get anywhere near his people. The Hacksaw of Hormuz was going down! He dashed for the stairs—it would be faster—with Ziva on his heels. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the delivery man enter the elevator, still white and trembling with fear.

* * *

He came out of the men's room, scratching his scalp. The wig had been hot, but necessary. Without it he would not have been permitted to enter.

He had walked in without being challenged almost half an hour ago, heading first for the elevators and then to hide in the men's room. They were expecting him, that much was clear. There were guards everywhere, looking at everyone three and four times, trying to determine whether or not this one or that was the person they were looking for.

He had walked past them, undetected. _Fools_. They would pay for their stupidity and al-Hamid would remain a free man, secure with the knowledge that his face was unknown to those who sought to kill him and his cause.

Room 412. That was where the two NCIS agents had been moved to. More computer work had determined that, hacking into not the secure patient files but the easily accessed database which showed which patient had been moved to where. There was a blank in the records where DiNozzo and McGee's names ought to have been, and another blank in room 412, and from that it was determined that the pair had been moved there to avoid retribution. It would have worked, had al-Hamid not been so clever.

He moved among others, doctors and nurses, visitors and candy-stripers, all unsuspecting. There were no guards on this floor, none that he could see. The guards would be inside the patient room so as not to attract attention, he knew. The attention would be directed toward room 310, where he was supposed to think that the two NCIS agents still rested.

Deep breath. Time to move in.

The door to room 412 was closed. It couldn't be locked; there was no lock on it. No one was watching him, and there were no guards that he could see. In a split second it would be over. He would walk over brains spilled out onto the linoleum.

 _Fast:_ hand pulling out the handgun. Push open the door—first shot at the guard. A chest shot; the man never had a chance to pull his own weapon. He toppled to the ground, landing on his face.

The assassin calmly emptied the contents of his handgun into the two huddled lumps lying in the identical two beds.

Jenny Shepard and Ziva David each stepped out from behind the door and the closet. They each pointed their handgun at the man's head.

"Give me an excuse," Ziva invited him as Shepard removed the gun from the man's hand.

The 'dead guard' got up and brushed himself off. "Putting in for an Oscar, Director," he grinned.

"You'll have it, Johnny," Shepard promised, "just make sure that we retrieve all the bullets that our friend put into those dummies." She reached up to yank off the fake mustache that he'd used to look like the flower delivery man—and the man yelled.

Shepard stared. It wasn't fake. The mustache was real, grown over many months. This wasn't al-Hamid. This wasn't the man who had taught at the Philadelphia seminar, although the resemblance was close.

"That's right, American whore-bitch!" the man taunted. "I am not Jameel al-Hamid! He is my leader, and he will destroy you! I help him with my sacrifice! al-Hamid goes free!"

* * *

The elevator chimed, and al-Hamid stepped off onto the third floor once again. The thick and bushy mustache tickled his nose and, irritated, he pulled it off and threw it to the floor. He would not be needing it any further. He considered his long term concealment options for the years ahead: not blond. That would be too time-consuming to maintain. Red head? Perhaps. There were several redheads of Middle Eastern background and, while somewhat unusual, would look sufficiently different that he could continue to hide in this country to wreak more havoc. With his recently acquired experience, perhaps he could seek to infiltrate the FBI. He smirked to himself; he could offer his services as an expert translator. Yes, that would be a worthy goal. He would consider it further once he had finished eliminating the pair of NCIS agents, the only two who had any chance at identifying him.

Room 310, just beyond 308, where they had stopped him before. It had been a useful diversion. These Americans, they thought that they could outsmart him by making him think that they moved the location of the NCIS agents. No, al-Hamid had seen through that, and had taken it one step further. He himself had created the diversion on the third floor so that the stupid Americans would seek to apprehend him on the fourth where they tried to direct him like a lamb to slaughter.  
He listened for the sound of bullets—yes, there it was. He would need to move swiftly; the Americans would not be fooled for long and he needed to be gone before the deception was revealed. There was no one in this corridor beyond a pair of nurses huddling behind the desk, making worthless notes on their papers. _You will not have your patients for much longer, female spawn of the Devil!_

He pushed in the door of room 310. Two beds, two NCIS agents. One was sleeping—he would die last. The second opened his eyes at the sound of the door opening, though only one eye responded; yes, that was the one that his people had caught, that they had tortured for information before being taken themselves. The man's face was bruised, one eye blackened. It was a handsome face, or would have been if not covered with bandages, and al-Hamid wished savagely that his people had killed this agent, and the other one, so that al-Hamid did not have to be troubled with the deed. They were incompetent, and had received their reward of death or imprisonment.

Time to finish this task. Crossing the room swiftly, al-Hamid grabbed a pillow—flat and worthless for comfort, yet excellent for smothering a man silently—and shoved it over the NCIS agent's face. The man's instinctive yell disappeared into the fabric of the pillow, and al-Hamid felt joy at the feeble thrashing of the man trying to save himself.

* * *

Not a gun. No, this deserved good, old-fashioned physical contact. A knuckle sandwich.

Gibbs felt no pain as he once again removed his damaged wing from the sling. Fury blocked out everything but the man in front of him who was seeking to kill his people. Retribution was at hand, and it needed to be done right. The gun was in his holster and there it stayed. Gibbs came out from his hiding place behind the door.

Gibbs grabbed al-Hamid by the shoulder, swinging him around.

The look of shock and horror on al-Hamid's face made it almost all worthwhile.

Smashing his fist into that face completed the satisfaction.

Hitting al-Hamid a second time only increased the pleasure. After all, Gibbs had _two_ agents recuperating in this hospital room.

* * *

Abby plunked herself down in the uncomfortable plastic chair located between the two beds in the hospital room containing both DiNozzo and McGee. She crossed her arms and her legs and looked ready to stay.

Tony DiNozzo was the first to comment on her actions. "Abby, is there a problem?"

Abby looked at him. "Yes, Tony, there is."

"And what might that be?"

"It's you. And McGee."

DiNozzo blinked. It would have had more effect if he had been able to get both eyes to blink at the same time, but one, although improved, was still swollen. The black had faded to a deep purple, and DiNozzo had chosen to be cheered by the progress. "I will agree that McGee has a problem. He always has a problem."

"Tony, you and McGee are going home tomorrow," Abby wailed. "Do you know how dangerous that is? People die at home."

"People die in their beds," McGee pointed out, "but they're usually much older and dying of some disease. Hi, boss, Ziva," he greeted the other two entering the room. "I assume that al-Hamid is somewhere safe so that he can't get to Abby?"

"McGee!"

"I don't know about 'safe'," Gibbs grumbled. "Damn FBI showed up on our doorstep this morning and took the bastard away before we had a chance to drain him dry."

"I could do a much better job at interrogating him." Ziva too was annoyed. "Your people do not speak Arabic with my fluency."

"Nor with your flair at cursing," DiNozzo added dryly, "or pressure points."

Ziva beamed. "Thank you, Tony. I shall remember that, next time that I question you as to your whereabouts."

Abby wasn't finished. "Who knows what he did, in case this frontal assault failed? Guys, you know that I checked out your seminar certificates thoroughly?"

"Yes, Abby," Gibbs said patiently. "I also remember handing them over to you and asking you to do exactly that."

Abby ignored him. "And do you know what I found on them?"

McGee put in the straight line. "What?"

"I don't know. The mass spec hasn't finished with it yet, but believe me it was some kind of deadly poison. One touch, Gibbs, and you would be in the bed next to DiNozzo," she announced, ignoring the shiver that went through both DiNozzo and Gibbs at the image that the thought provoked. "Those certificates, all four of them, will be going into Evidence as soon as I finish identifying the compound. You guys can run down where al-Hamid got the ingredients, maybe figure out who else was involved."

"Probably someone innocent, some simple shop-keeper," Ziva thought.

"Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, the point is: what if al-Hamid set up some other devious plot, in case this one failed? What if he put a rattlesnake in DiNozzo's mailbox, or a bomb in McGee's car?"

"A bomb in McGee's car would be a blessing in disguise," DiNozzo told her. "Do you know how old that thing is?"

"Tony, it's a classic—"

Ziva interrupted. "Any rattlesnake in DiNozzo's mailbox is more likely to be from a disappointed ex-girlfriend, Abby."

"Hah, hah, Ziva—"

Director Shepard entered, taking in the scene. "Gentlemen. Ladies."

"Director." Gibbs rose to offer her his seat.

She waved him away. "I'm not staying long; Susan has the car double-parked. I'm on my way to San Francisco in an hour. I just wanted to check in on these two, make certain that they hadn't gotten into any more trouble."

"I won't let them," Abby vowed.

Shepard smiled. "I'm sure you won't, Abby." Her smile grew a little more wicked. "Oh, and Jethro?"

"Yes, Director?"

"I understand that you and your team have not completed your mandatory ethics compliance classes for this year. None of you have a certificate in your personnel files." Director Shepard looked oh-so-innocent. "I've signed you up for the next seminar: it's in Cincinnati." She escaped before any of them could protest.

Ziva looked blank. "What's in Cincinnati?"

"Nothing, Ziva."

"Oh." She thought for a moment longer. "Considering what happened in Philadelphia at the previous seminar, that may not be a bad thing, Gibbs."

The entire group reflected on her words. And agreed.

The End.


End file.
